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LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 

PRESENTED  BY 


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C  (ov~l  5*i"  l 


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BV  1471  . C663  1923  c.l 
Committee  on  the  War  and  th 
Religious  Outlook. 

The  teaching  work  of  the 
church 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/teachingworkofch00cornm_0 


THE  TEACHING  WORK 
OF  THE  CHURCH 


THE  COMMITTEE  ON  THE  WAR 
AND  THE  RELIGIOUS  OUTLOOK 

(Appointed  by  the  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches  of  Christ  in  America) 


ASSOCIATION  PRESS 
New  York:  347  Madison  Avenue 

1923 


Copyright,  1923, 

The  International  Committee  of 
Young  Men’s  Christian  Associations 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


EDITORIAL  PREFACE 


“The  Teaching  Work  of  the  Church”  is  the  final 
volume  in  a  series  of  five  reports  issued  by  the  Committee 
on  the  War  and  the  Religious  Outlook,  an  interdenomina¬ 
tional  group  appointed  in  1918,  by  the  joint  action  of  the 
Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America 
and  the  General  War  Time  Commission  of  the  Churches, 
“to  consider  the  state  of  religion  as  revealed  or  affected 
by  the  war,  with  special  reference  to  the  duty  and  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  the  Churches.” 

The  task  which  the  Committee  at  first  set  for  itself  did 
not  include  any  special  discussion  of  the  educational  work 
of  the  Church.  At  every  turn,  however,  it  has  proved 
impossible  to  avoid  it. 

The  Committee’s  first  study,  the  inquiry  into  “Religion 
among  American  Men :  As  Revealed  by  a  Study  of  Con¬ 
ditions  in  the  Army,”  based  on  the  testimony  of  those 
who  had  been  most  intimately  in  touch  with  that  great 
cross-section  of  American  young  manhood  represented  by 
our  National  Army,  revealed  beyond  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt  that  the  Church,  as  a  teacher,  has  seriously  failed 
in  developing  even  among  its  members  a  clear  conception 
of  the  meaning  of  Christianity  for  human  life.  When, 
in  “The  Missionary  Outlook  in  the  Light  of  the  War,”  the 
Committee  considered  the  Church’s  missionary  responsi¬ 
bility,  the  chief  difficulty  was  found  to  be  that  those 
who  comprise  the  average  membership  of  the  Church  do 
not  yet  really  understand  the  universal  character  of  the 

Christian  Gospel  and  its  profound  meaning  for  our  inter- 

•  •  • 
in 


IV 


EDITORIAL  PREFACE 


national  life.  To  develop  the  needed  consciousness  of  the 
unity  of  mankind  and  of  a  world- wide  task  was  seen  to 
require  educational  processes  efficient  enough  to  change 
the  point  of  view  of  great  masses  of  men. 

No  less  inevitable  was  the  same  conclusion  when,  in 
“The  Church  and  Industrial  Reconstruction,”  our  present 
economic  and  industrial  life  was  examined  in  the  light 
of  the  Christian  ideal  for  society.  To  modify  our  existing 
social  order — which  accepts  self-interest  as  the  only  mo¬ 
tive  strong  enough  to  afford  a  foundation  for  our  indus¬ 
trial  life,  which  takes  ruthless  competition  as  the  principle 
of  economic  organization,  which  measures  success  by  the 
accumulation  of  material  wealth  and  the  exercise  of  power 
over  the  lives  of  others — until  we  have  a  society  in  which 
human  values  have  first  consideration  and  every  person¬ 
ality  has  opportunity  for  full  development,  in  which 
brotherhood  is  the  fundamental  relationship  of  men, 
and  love  the  controlling  motive,  in  which  service  to  the 
common  good  is  the  test  of  all  success,  this,  again, 
is  a  prodigious  task  which  can  be  achieved  only  by 
thorough  and  persistent  educational  effort. 

Even  when  studying  the  organization  of  the  Church 
itself,  in  “Christian  Unity:  Its  Principles  and  Possibili¬ 
ties,”  the  educational  issue  was  inescapable.  Convinced 
that  the  Churches  cannot  hope  to  lead  warring  nations  or 
conflicting  classes  into  fraternal  cooperation  unless  they 
themselves,  which  proclaim  the  gospel  of  unity,  can  em¬ 
body  it  in  their  own  relationships  to  each  other,  the 
Committee  nevertheless  found  that  this  requires  the  train¬ 
ing  of  Church  members  in  new  habits  of  thought,  an 
enlarged  understanding  of  their  underlying  unity  of  spirit 
and  purpose,  and  a  deepening  appreciation  of  what  the 
unity  of  the  Church  could  mean  in  achieving  the  unity  of 
mankind.  The  more  the  Committee  have  considered  any 


EDITORIAL  PREFACE 


v 


of  these  problems,  the  more  compellingly  have  they  been 
led  to  study  the  educational  work  of  the  Church.  Hence 
the  present  volume,  appearing  two  years  after  the  other 
four  reports. 

The  scope  and  character  of  this  volume  are  the  result 
of  many  group  conferences.  The  cooperation  of  several 
persons  was  then  secured  in  making  the  first  draft  of  the 
manuscript.  Chapters  I  and  II  were  drafted  by  Professor 
Luther  A.  Weigle,  of  Yale  Divinity  School ;  Chapters  III, 
IV,  VII,  and  IX  by  Rev.  Benjamin  S.  Winchester,  of  the 
International  Sunday  School  Lesson  Committee ;  Chapters 
V  and  XII  by  Professor  William  Adams  Brown,  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary ;  Chapter  VI  by  Rev.  Samuel 
McCrea  Cavert,  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches ; 
Chapter  VIII  by  Rev.  Erwin  L.  Shaver  of  the  Congre¬ 
gational  Education  Society;  Chapters  X  and  XI  by  Dr. 
Robert  L.  Kelly,  of  the  Council  of  Church  Boards  of 
Education. 

The  Conference  on  Correlation  of  Programs  of  Re¬ 
ligious  Education,  held  at  Forest  Hills,  L.  I.,  in  the  spring 
of  1923,  has  given  most  valuable  counsel  and  criticism. 
To  nearly  a  score  of  leaders  in  religious  education,  who 
have  read  the  manuscript,  the  Committee  is  indebted  for 
helpful  suggestions. 

In  order  to  secure  unity  in  structure,  development,  and 
style,  the  Secretary  of  the  Committee  has  been  given  full 
responsibility  for  revision  and  editing. 

Samuel  McCrea  Cavert,  Secretary. 


October  1,  1923. 


VI 


EDITORIAL  PREFACE 


Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Religious  Outlook 


Mrs.  Fred  S.  Bennett 
Professor  William  Adams 
Brown 

Miss  Mabel  Cratty 
Mr.  George  W.  Coleman 
Pres.  W.  H.  P.  Faunce 
Prof.  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick 
Rev.  Charles  W.  Gilkey 
Mr.  Frederick  Harris 
Prof.  W.  E.  Hocking 
Rev.  Samuel  G.  Inman 
Prof.  Charles  M.  Jacobs 
Pres.  Henry  Churchill  King 
Bishop  Walter  R.  Lambuth 
(deceased) 

Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell 


Rev.  Charles  S.  Macfarland 
Pres.  William  Douglas  Mac¬ 
kenzie 

Dean  Shailer  Mathews 
Dr.  John  R.  Mott 
Rev.  Frank  Mason  North 
Dr.  E.  C.  Richardson 
Very  Rev.  Howard  C.  Robbins 
Right  Rev.  Logan  H.  Roots 
Dr.  Robert  E.  Speer 
Rev.  Anson  Phelps  Stokes 
Rev.  James  I.  Vance 
Prof.  Henry  B.  Washburn 
President  Mary  E.  Woolley 
Prof.  Henry  B.  Wright 


Chairman — William  Adams  Brown 
Secretary — Samuel  McCrea  Cavert 


CONTENTS 


Editorial  Preface .  iii 

PART  I 

Why  the  Church  Must  Be  a  Teacher 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  The  Secularization  of  Public  Education .  3 

1.  The  Development  of  Public  Education  in 

America  .  4 

2.  The  Elimination  of  Religion  from  Public  Edu¬ 

cation  .  8 

3.  The  Danger  of  the  Present  Educational  Situ¬ 

ation  .  20 

4.  The  Necessity  for  a  New  Conscience  on  the 

Church’s  Educational  Responsibility .  28 

II  The  Educational  Function  of  the  Church .  38 

1.  The  Whole  Work  of  the  Church  as  an  Educa¬ 

tional  Enterprise  . 38 

2.  The  Church’s  Educational  Work  in  the  Stricter 

Sense  .  43 

PART  II 

How  the  Church  Should  Teach 

III  Teaching  the  Christian  Religion  to  the  Child.  . .  63 

1.  Infancy  and  Upward  .  64 

2.  Earlier  Childhood  .  71 

3.  Later  Childhood  .  76 

IV  Teaching  the  Christian  Religion  to  Youth .  89 

1.  Early  Adolescence  .  90 

2.  Later  Adolescence  .  98 

V  Teaching  the  Christian  Religion  to  the  Modern 

Man  .  108 

1.  The  Social  Environment  of  the  Modern  Man  108 

2.  Consequences  for  the  Educational  Task  of  the 

Church  .  117 

•  • 

Vll 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VI  Christianizing  Public  Opinion  .  124 

1.  The  Wider  Teaching  Mission  of  the  Church..  126 

2.  How  the  Church  Can  Influence  Public  Opinion  132 

3.  Beginning  to  Deal  with  the  Problem .  138 

PART  III 

How  the  Church  Should  Organize  Its  Teaching 

VII  The  Teaching  Agencies  of  the  Local  Church  : 

A  Critique  .  145 

1.  Agencies  Directly  Connected  with  the  Church  147 

2.  Agencies  Related  to  the  Church .  170 

3.  Other  Community  Agencies  .  173 

VIII  The  New  Movement  for  Week-Day  Religious  Edu¬ 
cation  .  176 

1.  Causes  of  the  Week-Day  Movement  .  177 

2.  Present  Status  of  Week-day  Schools  .  179 

3.  The  Week-day  School  Evaluated  .  190 

4.  The  Future  of  the  Movement .  192 

IX  Securing  a  Unified  Educational  Program  for  the 

Church  .  196 

1.  The  Need  for  a  Unified  Program  in  the  Local 

Church  .  196 

2.  The  Need  for  a  Unified  Program  in  the  Com¬ 

munity*  .  199 

3.  The  Need  for  Cooperation  among  the  National 

Agencies  .  205 

PART  IV 

The  Church  Training  for  Christian  Leadership 

X  Religious  Education  in  the  College .  231 

1.  The  College  Background  Favorable  to  Reli¬ 

gious  Training  .  232 

2.  The  Teaching  of  the  Bible  in  the  Curriculum  242 

3.  Religious  Education  in  the  Curriculum  .  247 


CONTENTS  Lx 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XI  Religious  Education  in  the  Tax-Supported  Insti¬ 
tution  .  250 

1.  The  Interest  of  the  State  University  in  Re¬ 

ligion  .  251 

2.  Types  of  Religious  Work  in  State  Institutions  254 

3.  Suggestions  for  the  Future .  267 

XII  Education  for  the  Christian  Ministry .  271 

1.  The  Present  Agencies  of  Theological  Educa¬ 

tion  .  271 

2.  Conditions  Affecting  Present-Day  Theological 

Education  .  275 

3.  How  the  Seminaries  Are  Facing  the  Situation  280 

4.  Desiderata  for  the  Future  .  284 

Classified  Bibliography  .  297 

Index  . 305 


PART  I 


WHY  THE  CHURCH  MUST  BE  A 

TEACHER 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCA¬ 
TION 

The  responsibility  for  the  training  of  the  young  rests 
chiefly  upon  three  great  institutions  of  human  society — 
the  family,  the  Church,  and  the  State.  Just  what  share 
each  of  these  institutions  shall  have  and  what  shall  be 
their  precise  relation  are  questions  to  which  we  have 
no  final  answer.  The  answer  depends,  in  part,  upon  ethi¬ 
cal,  political,  and  religious  principles  concerning  which 
there  may  be  honest  differences  of  conviction,  and  in 
part  upon  the  changing  conditions  of  practical  life  which 
bring  about,  from  time  to  time,  readjustments  in  theory 
and  practice. 

Historically,  such  shifts  in  the  balance  of  responsibility 
have  taken  place  as  are  thus  to  be  expected.  Roughly 
speaking,  the  major  responsibility  for  the  education  of 
children  rested  in  ancient  times  upon  the  family,  and 
in  the  Middle  Ages  upon  the  Church,  while  the  trend 
of  modern  times  has  been  to  lay  increasing  responsi¬ 
bility  upon  the  State. 

There  stands  to  the  credit  of  the  United  States  the 
conception  and  development  of  a  system  of  free  tax- 
supported  schools,  non-sectarian  and  publicly  controlled, 
to  promote  the  common  welfare  and  to  serve  as  the 
instrument  of  democracy.  We  have  now  become  so 
accustomed  to  the  idea  of  free  public  education  that  we 
accept  it  as  a  matter  of  course  and  are  apt  to  forget  that 
it  became  established  as  the  educational  policy  of  America 

3 


4  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


only  after  a  long  and,  at  times,  hard  struggle.  “Ex¬ 
cepting  the  battle  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,”  says  the 
most  competent  historian  in  this  field,  “perhaps  no  ques¬ 
tion  has  ever  been  before  the  American  people  which 
caused  so  much  feeling  or  aroused  such  bitter  antag- 
onism.,,  1 


i.  Development  of  Public  Education  in  America 

In  the  early  colonies  there  were  three  different  atti¬ 
tudes  toward  education,  which  later  served  to  shape  the 
educational  development  of  the  several  States  and  to 
determine  the  character  of  the  struggle  which  finally 
issued  in  the  establishment  of  our  present  policy.  In 
the  southern  colonies  generally,  education  was  viewed  as 
primarily  the  private  concern  of  parents.  They  hired 
private  tutors  for  their  children  or  paid  for  their  tuition 
in  private  schools.  Neither  Church  nor  State  felt  any 
definite  obligation  with  respect  to  education,  other  than 
as  a  charitable  provision  for  the  children  of  the  poor.  In 
the  middle  colonies  education  was  conceived  to  be  chiefly 
the  function  of  the  Church,  as  illustrated  on  the  Protes¬ 
tant  side  by  Pennsylvania,  on  the  Roman  Catholic  side  by 
Maryland.  Schools  were  established  by  the  Churches, 
sometimes  with  subsidies  by  the  State,  and  all  State  in¬ 
terference  with  the  Church  control  of  education  was 
resented.  In  the  New  England  colonies,  except  Rhode 
Island,  education  was  regarded  as  the  business  of  the 
community.  The  public-school  policy  was  adopted  and  the 
State  by  law  compelled  the  towns  to  maintain  schools, 
and  parents  to  send  their  children  to  them.  Of  these 
three  attitudes,  that  which  was  characteristic  of  New 
England  finally  won  out,  though  the  victory  of  the  prin- 

XE.  P.  Cubberley,  “Public  Education  in  the  United  States,” 
p.  119,  New  York,  1919. 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION 


5 

ciple  of  free  public  education  was  not  assured  until  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  the  fulfilment  of  this  policy,  there  has  gradually  been 
developed  in  America  a  great  national  system  of  public 
education.  Over  20,000,000  children  are  enrolled  in  our 
elementary  public  schools,  which  are  maintained  by  taxa¬ 
tion  at  a  cost,  before  the  war,  of  more  than  $30  for  each 
pupil,  50  per  cent,  more  than  England’s  pre-war  expendi¬ 
ture  for  elementary  education,  and  nearly  twice  that  of 
Germany.  Secondary  public  schools  have  multiplied  and 
grown  astonishingly  during  the  past  50  years.  In  1870 
there  were  about  500  free  public  high  schools  in  this 
country;  now  there  are  more  than  16,000,  with  an  en¬ 
rollment  of  2,000,000  pupils,  30  per  cent,  of  all  the  boys 
and  girls  of  high-school  age  in  the  country.  The  relative 
number  of  those  attending  private  secondary  schools  has 
been  steadily  decreasing.  In  1890,  32  per  cent,  of  the 
pupils  attending  secondary  schools  were  in  private  insti¬ 
tutions;  now  only  8.8  per  cent.  The  estimated  cost  per 
pupil  for  the  whole  country,  in  1918,  was  $84.59. 

The  principle  of  free  public  education  has  been  ex¬ 
tended  in  this  country  even  to  institutions  of  higher  edu¬ 
cation.  In  most  States  a  State  university  is  maintained 
at  public  expense,  free  of  tuition  charges  to  the  children 
of  citizens  of  that  commonwealth;  in  some  States  there 
are  other  tax-supported  institutions  of  college  grade, 
notably  colleges  of  agriculture  and  colleges  for  the  train¬ 
ing  of  teachers.  About  40  per  cent,  of  the  college  and 
university  students  of  the  country  are  enrolled  in  these 
public  institutions.  The  cost,  in  1918,  was  $505  per 
student. 

This  system  of  public  schools  and  colleges  constitutes 
as  a  whole  a  great  and  daring  experiment  in  public  edu¬ 
cation.  The  fact  is,  as  Professor  C.  H.  Judd  declares, 
“that  we  are  trying  to  give  everybody  in  this  country 
at  public  expense  a  higher  education  than  he  could  get 
anywhere  else  in  the  world.” 


6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


The  schools  of  today  touch  children’s  lives  and  influ¬ 
ence  their  development  at  many  more  points  than  the 
schools  of  fifty  years  ago.  The  curriculum  of  public  edu¬ 
cation  has  been  greatly  enriched.  The  growth  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  the  application  of  science  to  the  various  fields  of 
human  industry;  the  development  of  invention,  manufac¬ 
ture,  and  commerce ;  the  social  and  economic  changes 
involved  in  the  industrial  revolution  and  in  the  massing 
of  population  in  cities ;  and  the  correlative  changes  in 
home  life,  have  opened  to  the  schools  new  avenues  of 
service  and  thrown  upon  them  new  duties. 

In  the  elementary  and  secondary  public  schools  of  to¬ 
day  children  learn  not  only  “the  three  R’s,”  the  languages, 
and  the  traditional  subjects  of  literature,  history,  and 
geography,  but  the  physical  and  biological  sciences  and 
their  applications;  cooking,  sewing,  and  household  econ¬ 
omy;  carpentering  and  cabinet-making;  metal  working, 
forging,  and  the  use  and  care  of  machinery;  gardening, 
agriculture,  dairying,  and  stock-raising ;  stenography,  type¬ 
writing,  bookkeeping,  and  the  economics  of  business ; 
journalism  and  printing;  drawing,  painting,  modeling, 
and  decorating;  music,  dancing,  dramatic  expression,  and 
public  speaking ;  gymnastics,  athletics,  physical  educa¬ 
tion,  personal  hygiene,  and  the  principles  of  public  health. 
The  fact  is  that  under  present  conditions  of  life  we  must 
rely  upon  the  schools,  very  largely,  not  only  to  impart 
to  children  the  new  knowledge  and  power  with  which 
the  progress  of  science,  invention,  and  discovery  is  so 
richly  endowing  our  time,  but  to  afford  to  them  much 
of  the  sense-experience,  motor  training,  moral  disci¬ 
pline,  and  the  educative  opportunities  to  handle  and  make 
things,  to  work  and  to  play,  to  bear  responsibilities  and 
to  share  in  group  activities,  which  under  simpler  social 
conditions  were  afforded  to  children  by  the  contacts  of 
everyday  life  in  the  home  and  in  the  community. 

Perhaps  no  better  formula  could  be  found  to  express 
this  widening  of  the  functions  and  enrichment  of  the 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION 


7 


curriculum  of  our  schools  than  is  embodied  in  the  state¬ 
ment  that  the  schools  of  today  constitute  a  fairly  faithful 
transcript  or  reproduction,  on  a  small  scale ,  of  life  itself . 
The  schools  are  no  longer  mere  instruments  of  drill  in  the 
clerical  arts  or  transmitters  of  a  conventional  heritage  of 
book-knowledge ;  they  constitute  rather  the  fundamental 
means  whereby  society  as  a  whole  undertakes  to  repro¬ 
duce  itself  and  to  shape  its  own  progress.  Education,  the 
wisest  of  men  have  long  said,  is  not  a  mere  preparation 
for  life ;  it  is  life  itself.  The  schools  of  today  have 
largely  caught  that  vision,  and  are  seeking  to  realize  it  in 
their  work.  The  field  of  their  activity  is  as  broad  as  life. 
Theoretically,  no  human  interest  or  occupation  lies  with¬ 
out  their  purview.  Practically,  their  failure  to  take  ac¬ 
count  of  any  such  interest  or  occupation  is  presumptive 
evidence  of  its  lack  of  worth  or  importance. 

No  one  has  done  more  to  interpret  the  educational 
significance  of  the  changed  conditions  of  modern  life,  and 
to  work  out  the  functions  of  the  school  in  view  of  these 
conditions,  than  John  Dewey.  For  him,  education  faces 
toward  the  future  rather  than  toward  the  past.  It  is  the 
process  whereby  society  reproduces  its  own  life,  perpetu¬ 
ates  its  interests  and  ideals,  shapes  its  future,  and  ensures 
its  progress.  The  end  of  education  is  not  merely  knowl¬ 
edge  or  power,  but  social  efficiency,  which  includes,  in  a 
democratic  society,  the  development  of  initiative,  responsi¬ 
bility,  and  good-will.  Such  social  efficiency  can  be 
acquired  only  by  actual  participation  in  the  life  and  activ¬ 
ities  of  a  democratic  society.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
school,  therefore,  to  foster  such  a  society  and  to  induce 
such  participation  on  the  part  of  children.  The  school 
should  thus  be  a  miniature  world  of  real  experiences,  real 
opportunities,  real  interests,  and  real  social  relations.  It 
must,  of  course,  be  a  world  simplified  and  suited  to  the 
active  powers  of  children;  it  must  be  a  world,  moreover, 
widened,  balanced,  purified,  and  rightly  proportioned  as 
compared  with  the  particular  section  of  the  grown-up 


8  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


world  that  lies  immediately  without  its  bounds ;  it  is  a 
world,  again,  which  contains  a  teacher  who  is  at  once 
leader,  inspirer,  interpreter,  and  friend.  But  it  is  a  real 
world  which  reflects  the  fundamental,  truer  interests  and 
values  of  the  world  without.  Within  this  school-world 
children  learn  by  working  rather  than  merely  by  listening 
or  reading ;  develop  originality,  initiative,  responsibility, 
and  self-control  by  engaging  in  projects  which  call  forth 
these  qualities ;  and  fit  themselves  for  life  by  living  and 
working  together  in  cooperative,  mutually  helpful  rela¬ 
tions.  This  picture  is,  of  course,  idealized  and  perhaps 
does  not  describe  the  average  school  of  our  acquaintance, 
but  it  does  represent  the  clearly  conceived  goal  now  held 
by  the  forward-looking  leaders  who  are  turning  their 
attention  to  our  educational  system. 

2.  The  Elimination  of  Religion  from  Public 
Education 

In  one  respect,  however,  neither  the  actual  public 
schools  of  America  nor  the  schools  of  Professor  Deweys 
educational  theory  are  true  to  the  life  which  they  seek  to 
transcribe  or  to  the  society  which  it  is  their  function  to 
reproduce. — They  omit  religion.  With  the  exception  of 
the  reading  of  a  few  verses  from  the  Bible  and  the  recital 
of  the  Lord’s  Prayer  in  the  schools  of  some  States  and 
communities,  the  teaching  of  religion  has  disappeared 
from  the  public  schools  of  this  country. 

Why  this  strange  omission  ?  we  may  well  imagine 
some  visitor  from  Mars  inquiring.  Religion  is  still  a 
fundamental  interest  of  men ;  churches  are  to  be  found 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land;  God  is 
worshiped  among  us,  and  missionaries  of  Christ  go  forth 
to  other  lands.  Why  should  the  schools,  which  are  meant 
to  epitomize  life  at  its  best,  ignore  man’s  devotion  to  the 
Highest?  It  would  seem  impossible,  were  it  not  true. 

The  reasons  for  the  almost  complete  elimination  of 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION 


9 


religious  teaching  and  religious  worship  from  the  public 
schools  are  to  be  found  in  considerations  that  reach  far 
back  into  our  history.  In  the  early  history  of  this  country, 
especially  during  the  colonial  period,  the  aims  of  educa¬ 
tion  were  conceived  generally  in  religious  terms,  and  the 
curriculum  of  the  schools  was  largely  religious  in  char¬ 
acter.  This  was  quite  as  true  of  New  England,  with  its 
public-school  policy,  as  of  those  colonies  wrhere  the  schools 
were  parochial.  A  pamphlet  entitled  “New  England’s 
First  Fruits,”  published  in  London  in  1643,  states  the 
motive  which  led  the  Puritans  immediately  to  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  schools  and  a  college:  “After  God  had  car¬ 
ried  us  safe  to  New  England  and  we  had  builded  our 
houses,  provided  necessaries  for  our  livelihood,  reared 
convenient  places  for  God’s  worship,  and  settled  the  civil 
government,  one  of  the  next  things  we  longed  for  and 
looked  after  was  to  advance  learning  and  perpetuate  it  to 
posterity,  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministry  to  the 
churches  when  our  present  ministers  shall  lie  in  the  dust.” 

“The  first  schools  in  America,”  says  Cubberley,  “were 
clearly  the  fruits  of  the  Protestant  Revolt  in  Europe.  .  .  . 
Under  the  older  religious  theory  of  collective  judgment 
and  collective  responsibility  for  salvation — that  is,  the 
judgment  of  the  Church  rather  than  that  of  individuals — * 
it  was  not  important  that  more  than  a  few  be  educated. 
Under  the  new  theory  of  individual  responsibility  promul¬ 
gated  by  the  Protestants  the  education  of  all  became  a 
vital  necessity.  .  .  .  The  Reformation  movement  gave  a 
new  motive  for  the  education  of  children  not  intended  for 
the  service  of  the  State  or  the  Church,  and  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  elementary  vernacular  schools  was  the  result.”  2 

That  the  aim  of  education  was  conceived  in  religious 
terms,  in  the  early  history  of  America,  can  be  shown 
abundantly  by  citations  from  the  legislation  of  the  period. 
The  Massachusetts  Law  of  1647,  which  ordered  the  towns 


*  Cubberley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  9-1 1. 


10  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


to  establish  schools,  and  the  Connecticut  Law  of  1650, 
set  forth  in  a  preamble  that  it  is  “one  chief  project  of 
that  old  deluder,  Satan,  to  keep  men  from  the  knowledge 
of  the  Scriptures  ...  by  persuading  them  from  the  use 
of  tongues  so  that  the  true  sense  and  meaning  of  the 
original  might  be  clouded  with  false  glosses  of  saint- 
seeming  deceivers.”  The  New  Haven  Code  of  1655  set 
as  a  minimum  educational  standard  that  children  “attain 
at  least  so  much  as  to  be  able  duly  to  read  the  Scriptures 
and  other  good  and  profitable  printed  books  in  the  English 
tongue  .  .  .  and  in  some  competent  measure  to  under¬ 
stand  the  main  grounds  and  principles  of  the  Christian 
religion  necessary  to  salvation.”  The  rules  of  the  school 
at  Dorchester  (1645),  which  may  be  taken  as  typical, 
required  the  scholars  to  attend  Church  and  to  report  to 
the  teacher  each  week  concerning  the  text  and  content  of 
the  previous  Sunday’s  sermon;  and  required  the  teacher 
to  catechize  the  scholars  in  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
religion  and  “to  commend  his  scholars  and  his  labors 
amongst  them  unto  God  by  prayer  morning  and  evening, 
taking  care  that  his  scholars  do  reverently  attend  during 
the  same.”  Harvard  College  was  founded  (1636)  that 
the  churches  might  be  protected  from  “an  illiterate  min¬ 
istry” ;  Yale  (1701),  to  fit  youth  “for  public  employment 
both  in  Church  and  civil  State.”  King’s  College  (1754), 
now  Columbia  University,  declared  in  an  advertisement 
in  New  York  papers,  announcing  its  opening,  that  “the 
chief  thing  that  is  arrived  at  in  this  College  is,  to  teach 
and  engage  the  children  to  know  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  to 
love  and  serve  Him  in  all  Sobriety,  Godliness,  and  Rich¬ 
ness  of  life,  with  a  pure  Heart  and  a  Willing  Mind,  and 
to  train  them  up  in  all  Virtuous  Habits,  and  all  such  useful 
Knowledge  as  may  render  them  creditable  to  their  Fam¬ 
ilies  and  Friends,  Ornaments  to  their  country,  and  useful 
to  the  Public  Weal  in  their  Generation.”  3  In  the  Ordi- 


•  E.  P.  Cubberley,  op.  cit. 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  n 


nance  of  1787  establishing  the  great  Northwest  Territory, 
Congress  provided  that,  “religion,  morality,  and  knowl¬ 
edge  being  necessary  to  good  government  and  the  happi¬ 
ness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education 
shall  forever  be  encouraged”  in  the  States  to  be  formed 
from  that  territory;  and  some  of  these  States  yet  retain 
the  provision,  with  this  very  wording  in  their 
constitutions. 

In  consonance  with  the  religious  character  of  their  aim, 
the  curriculum  of  early  public  schools  contained  much 
religious  material.  In  most  of  these  schools  the  catechism 
was  taught.  Some  Churches  in  New  England  ordered 
catechisms  to  be  written  for  the  instruction  of  their  chil¬ 
dren,  which  were  used  in  the  town  schools.  In  time  the 
Westminster  Assembly’s  Shorter  Catechism  took  the  place 
of  most  of  these  local  manuals  of  religious  instruction. 
The  New  England  Primer,  which  was  for  nearly  a  cen¬ 
tury  and  a  half  the  chief  school  book  of  America,  attain¬ 
ing  a  sale  of  at  least  3,000,000  copies,  was  almost  wholly 
composed  of  religious  material,  part  of  which  was  gradu¬ 
ally  replaced,  in  later  editions,  by  secular  material.  After 
the  Primer,  the  Psalter,  the  Testament,  and  the  whole 
Bible  constituted  the  reading  books  of  the  schools. 

Gradually,  however,  the  emphasis  in  public  education 
has  shifted  from  religious  to  civic,  social,  and  industrial 
aims ;  and  the  development  of  the  public  school  system 
has  involved  the  almost  complete  elimination  from  these 
schools  of  religious  worship  and  religious  teaching.  “The 
secularization  of  American  education,”  this  has  come  to 
be  called.  The  phrase  must  be  taken  objectively;  it  does 
not  mean  that  there  has  been  a  purposed  movement  to 
render  the  schools  godless,  or  that  the  American  people 
have  become  indifferent  or  hostile  to  religion.  Strange  as 
it  may  seem,  this  secularization  has  been  incidental  rather 
than  purposed,  a  sort  of  by-product  of  the  slow,  combined 
logic  of  principles,  events,  and  human  nature  in  the  years 
since  the  colonies  united  themselves  into  a  nation.  As 


12  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


S.  W.  Brown  writes,  after  an  exhaustive  study  of  the 
subject:  “Differences  of  religious  belief  and  a  sound 
regard  on  the  part  of  the  State  for  individual  freedom  in 
religious  matters  .  .  .  rather  than  hostility  to  religion  as 
such,  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  movement  toward  the  secular 
school.”  4  And  Cubberley  adds :  “The  secularization  of 
education  with  us  must  not  be  regarded  either  as  a  de¬ 
liberate  or  a  wanton  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  Church, 
but  rather  as  an  unavoidable  incident  connected  with  the 
coming  to  self-consciousness  and  self-government  of  a 
great  people.”  5 6 

Five  factors  chiefly  have  combined  to  bring  about  this 
secularization.  Two  of  these  factors  are  principles  funda¬ 
mental  to  American  life,  never,  we  may  hope,  to  be  sur¬ 
rendered  : 

(a)  The  principle  of  religious  freedom. 

(b)  The  principle  of  public  education  for  citizenship 
in  a  democracy. 

The  other  three  factors  are  matters  of  fact,  trends  of 
circumstance  and  event: 

(c)  The  religious  heterogeneity  of  the  population. 

(d)  Movements  toward  the  centralization  and  stand¬ 
ardization  of  education. 

(e)  The  growth  of  knowledge  and  the  development 
of  the  sciences  and  arts. 

We  must  briefly  consider  the  influence  of  each  of  these 
factors. 

(i)  The  Principle  of  Religious  Freedom. — We  may 
be  amused  at  the  seeming  inconsistency  with  which  the 
early  settlers  of  New  England  who  came  to  America  for 
the  sake  of  freedom  to  worship  and  to  serve  God  as 
conscience  bade  them,  penalized  with  various  disabilities 

4  S.  W.  Brown,  “The  Secularization  of  American  Education,” 

P-  3- 

6  E.  P.  Cubberley,  op.  cit.,  p.  173. 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  13 

any  who  came  to  dwell  among  them  who  did  not  share 
their  religious  convictions — “Quakers,  Ranters,  Anabap¬ 
tists,  Church  of  England  men,  and  the  like.”  But  this 
was  simply  because  they  were  so  concerned  to  maintain 
the  integrity  of  their  own  little  groups  and  to  preserve 
for  themselves  the  freedom  which  they  had  so  hardly 
won.  They  were  entirely  willing  that  the  folk  who  dif¬ 
fered  from  them  should  be  free  to  believe  and  worship 
as  they  chose,  provided  they  did  it  somewhere  else,  and 
did  not  disrupt  by  their  presence  the  unity  of  the  theo¬ 
cratic  fellowship  which  the  settlers  had  established. 

Such  isolation  of  little  theocratic  communities  could 
not,  of  course,  endure.  When  finally  the  thirteen  colonies 
came  together  to  form  the  United  States  of  America, 
seven  of  them  held  the  Anglican  faith  as  their  established 
religion,  three  Congregationalism,  and  three  had  refused 
to  declare  preference  for  any  form  of  faith.  The  problem 
was  settled  by  the  Constitutional  Convention  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  principle  of  religious  freedom.  Provisions 
were  inserted  in  the  Constitution  which  guarantee  the  free 
exercise  of  their  religious  faith  to  all,  and  forbid  the 
establishment  by  Congress  of  any  State  religion,  or  the 
requirement  of  any  religious  test  or  oath  as  a  prerequisite 
for  holding  any  office  under  the  control  of  the  United 
States  Government. 

That  solution  of  the  problem,  and  the  principle  of 
religious  freedom  which  underlies  it,  we  may  well  hope, 
America  will  never  surrender.  Religion  must  not  be  made 
a  matter  of  majority  vote;  the  rights  of  the  minority,  even 
of  the  individual,  in  matters  of  conscience  and  religious 
faith,  must  be  preserved.  The  bearing  of  this  principle 
upon  the  life  of  the  public  schools  is  obvious.  The  State 
must  not,  through  its  schools,  force  upon  the  children  of 
any  citizen  doctrines  and  practices  which  are  not  in  accord 
with  his  religious  beliefs  and  his  desire  concerning  the 
religious  education  of  his  children. 


14  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

“The  far-reaching  importance  for  our  future  national 
life  of  these  sane  provisions  (of  the  Constitution),  and 
especially  their  importance  for  the  future  of  public  edu¬ 
cation,  can  hardly  be  over-estimated.  This  action  led  to 
the  early  abandonment  of  State  religions,  religious  tests, 
and  public  taxation  for  religion  in  the  old  States,  and  to 
the  prohibition  of  these  in  the  new.  It  also  laid  the  foun¬ 
dations  upon  which  our  systems  of  free,  common,  public, 
tax-supported,  non-sectarian  schools  have  since  been  built 
up.  How  we  ever  could  have  erected  a  common  public 
school  system  on  a  religious  basis,  with  the  many  religious 
sects  among  us,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive.  Instead,  we 
should  have  had  a  series  of  feeble,  jealous,  antagonistic, 
and  utterly  inefficient  Church  school  systems,  confined 
chiefly  to  elementary  education,  and  each  largely  intent 
on  teaching  its  peculiar  Church  doctrines  and  struggling 
for  an  increasing  share  of  public  funds.’’ 6 

(2)  The  Principle  of  Public  Education  for  Citizen¬ 
ship  in  a  Democracy. — In  theocratic  New  England  the 
fact  that  the  care  of  the  schools  was  assigned  to  the  civil 
organization  rather  than  to  the  ecclesiastical  seems  to  have 
been  a  matter  of  expediency,  merely  due  to  the  measure 
of  taxation  involved  and  the  need  for  a  certain  amount  of 
compulsion,  with  annexed  penalties  for  failure  to  comply 
with  the  law.  With  the  adoption  of  the  national  Con¬ 
stitution,  however,  establishing  this  country  as  a  republic 
and  extending  the  right  of  suffrage  to  male  citizens  gen¬ 
erally,  instead  of  to  the  propertied  class  only,  a  new 
motive  appeared  for  universal  education  and  a  new  rea¬ 
son  why  education  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  State. 
The  welfare  of  a  republic,  as  of  no  other  form  of  govern¬ 
ment,  is  dependent  upon  the  education  of  its  citizens.  As 
a  measure  of  simple  self-preservation  a  republican  State 
must  maintain  schools.  “Promote  then,”  said  Washing¬ 
ton  in  his  Farewell  Address,  “as  an  object  of  primary 
importance,  institutions  for  the  general  diffusion  of  knowl¬ 
edge.  In  proportion  as  the  structure  of  a  government 


6  Cubberley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  55,  56. 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  15 

gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public 
opinion  should  be  enlightened.” 

Here,  then,  is  a  motive  for  public  education  indigenous 
to  the  life  of  the  State  itself.  It  is  easy  to-  understand 
how,  in  the  struggle  which  followed  to  establish  systems 
of  free  public  schools,  a  struggle  which  continued  through¬ 
out  more  than  the  first  half-century  of  our  national  ex¬ 
istence,  this  political  motive  came  wholly  to  overshadow 
the  religious  motive.  It  was  as  a  means  to  the  welfare 
of  democracy  in  the  field  of  politics,  rather  than  as  the 
instrument  of  democracy  in  religion,  that  public  pro¬ 
vision  for  education  was  urged.  An  interesting  illustra¬ 
tion  of  this  transfer  of  emphasis  is  furnished  by  the 
successive  constitutions  of  the  State  of  Mississippi.  The 
first  Constitution,  adopted  in  1817,  contained  the  follow¬ 
ing  section,  the  wording  of  which  was  modeled  upon 
that  of  the  national  Ordinance  of  1787  establishing  the 
Northwest  Territory: 

“Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being  necessary  to 
good  government,  the  preservation  of  liberty,  and  the 
happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  educa¬ 
tion  shall  forever  be  encouraged  in  this  State.” 

This  section  was  left  standing  in  the  revision  of  this 
Constitution  which  was  made  in  1832;  but  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  adopted  in  1868  contains  a  wholly  new  section  which 
omits  the  religious  note: 

“As  the  stability  of  a  republican  form  of  government 
depends  mainly  upon  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the 
people,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to  encourage, 
by  all  suitable  means,  the  promotion  of  intellectual,  scien¬ 
tific,  moral,  and  agricultural  improvement,  by  establishing 
a  uniform  system  of  free  public  schools.” 

Minnesota’s  Constitution  (1857)  went  even  further,  in 
that  it  removed  all  reference  to  morality,  though  one  may 
question  whether  those  who  framed  the  instrument  had 
any  particular  point  in  mind  in  making  the  omission : 


16  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


“The  stability  of  a  republican  form  of  government  de¬ 
pending  mainly  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  people,  it  shall 
be  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to  establish  a  general  and 
uniform  system  of  public  schools.” 

The  principle  that  a  democratic  State  must  perpetuate 
itself  and  ensure  its  progress  by  providing  for  the  educa¬ 
tion  of  its  own  citizens  is  a  second  principle  which,  we 
may  well  hope  and  believe,  America  will  never  surrender. 
As  stated  in  the  earlier  years  of  our  national  history,  this 
principle  was  made  to  refer  merely  to  the  perpetuation  of 
our  political  institutions,  just  as  there  are  some  today 
who  seem  to  think  that  “Americanization”  consists  in  in¬ 
structing  a  foreign-born  candidate  for  citizenship  in  the 
details  of  our  political  machinery.  But  we  see  now  that 
the  principle  includes  the  whole  range  of  life.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  American  States,  through  their  public 
schools,  to  perpetuate  and  to  further  the  ideals  of  Amer¬ 
ican  life.  The  political  relations  of  life  cannot  be  sun¬ 
dered  from  its  economic,  industrial,  social,  and  moral 
relations.  Nothing  short  of  such  a  comprehensive  aim 
and  function  as  Professor  Dewey  attributes  to  the  schools 
can  fulfil  the  principle  and  accomplish  the  ends  of  public 
education  for  citizenship  in  a  democracy  such  as  ours. 

But  are  the  public  schools  of  America  fully  perpetuat¬ 
ing  America’s  ideals  when  they  ignore  or  slight  religion  ? 7 

7  A  remarkable  illustration  of  the  present-day  interest  even  of 
public  officials  in  more  effective  religious  education  is  found  in 
the  recent  action  of  the  Legislature  of  South  Dakota,  quoted  in 
The  Congregationalist,  March  8,  1923.  It  declares  that  “the 
strength  and  efficiency  of  any  republic,  a  government  by  the 
people,  depends  upon  the  best  development  of  those  people,  which 
experience  has  demonstrated,  and  history  shows,  cannot  be  with¬ 
out  religion.”  The  resolution  then  urges  the  homes  and  the 
churches  of  the  State  “to  intensify  their  work  [of  religious 
education]  and  to  extend  it  to  every  child,”  and  concludes  by 
urging  “that  the  [public]  schools  promptly  reform  their  methods 
so  that  the  rudimentary  studies,  as  well  as  the  sciences,  be  taught 
only  as  subordinate  to  righteousness,”  in  the  recognition  “that 
all  learning  is  but  the  handmaiden  of  eternal  goodness.” 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  17 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  principle  of  public  education 
for  citizenship  in  democratic  America  would  lead  straight 
toward  the  inclusion  of  religious  elements  in  the  program 
and  curriculum  of  the  schools  were  it  not  for  the  warring 
views  of  the  religious  sects  themselves.  Neither  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  religious  freedom  nor  the  principle  of  public 
education  for  democratic  citizenship  would  have  brought 
about  the  present  secularization  of  American  education 
were  it  not  for  a  third  factor,  the  religious  heterogeneity 
of  the  population  of  this  country. 

(3)  The  Religious  Heterogeneity  of  the  Population. 
— The  fact  of  the  religious  heterogeneity  of  America  is 
so  notorious,  and  the  influence  so  obvious,  as  to  need  but 
little  discussion.  So  long  as  the  people  of  a  community 
remain  fairly  homogeneous,  it  is  natural  that  their  com¬ 
mon  religious  faith  should  be  taught  in  their  schools.  The 
Westminster  Catechism  could  be  taught  in  the  public 
schools  of  a  New  England  town  in  the  eighteenth  century 
because  everybody  in  the  town  believed  the  doctrines  of 
that  Catechism.  But  it  would  be  hard  now  to  find  any 
town  in  New  England,  the  inhabitants  of  which  would 
readily  agree  on  a  common  body  of  religious  doctrine,  or 
even  of  religious  practice,  to  be  taught  in  their  schools. 

The  public  schools  of  this  country  have  been  at  the 
mercy  of  minorities.  When  a  group  or  individual  has 
chosen  to  object,  on  what  are  averred  to  be  conscientious 
grounds,  to  any  religious  feature  of  the  program  or 
curriculum  of  the  schools,  that  feature  has  usually  been 
dropped,  and'  nothing  else  of  a  religious  sort  has  taken  its 
place.  The  result  is  our  present  situation,  with  the  public 
schools  almost  completely  stripped  of  religious  elements. 

This  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  religion.  It  is  the 
work  of  religious  people — or,  at  least,  of  religious  parti¬ 
sans.  Avowed  infidels  or  secularists  have  had  little  to  do 
with  it.  Foreign  immigration  was  a  large  factor  in  bring¬ 
ing  it  about,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  responsible 


18  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


for  much  of  it.  But  the  process  had  begun  long  before 
the  flood  of  immigration  set  in  or  the  Catholic  Church  in 
this  country  was  strong  enough  to  raise  much  protest. 
The  secularization  of  the  schools  of  Connecticut,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  was  begun  as  a  result  of  the  conflicts  of  Congre- 
gationalists,  Separatists,  Episcopalians,  Baptists,  and 
Methodists,  before  the  Catholic  immigration  had  reached 
a  point  where  that  Church  was  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with. 

The  breach  between  Catholic  and  Protestant,  how¬ 
ever,  has  had  much  more  to  do  with  the  secularization  of 
the  public  schools  than  the  quarrels  or  the  divisiveness  of 
the  Protestant  denominations.  This  is  especially  true 
with  respect  to  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  schools,  against 
which  the  Catholics  have  consistently  protested  on  the 
ground  that  the  Bible,  as  read  by  Protestants,  is  a  sec¬ 
tarian  book ;  that  reading  the  Bible,  together  with  the 
recital  of  the  Lord’s  Prayer,  constitutes  a  type  of  worship 
not  in  accord  with  their  practice  and  belief,  which  their 
children  ought  not  to  be  compelled  to  attend ;  and  that’ 
the  practice  of  excusing  their  children  while  the  rest  of 
the  school  engages  in  such  worship,  places  these  children 
at  a  disadvantage  as  compared  with  Protestant  children, 
causes  them  inconvenience,  and  throws  them  open  to  the 
contempt  of  their  fellows. 

(4)  Movements  toward  the  Centralization  and 
Standardization  of  Education. — In  various  ways  the  unit 
of  school  administration  has  widened  from  the  single  dis¬ 
trict  to  the  town,  the  county,  or  the  State.  It  has  thus 
become  necessary  to  take  into  consideration  the  rights, 
practices,  opinions,  and  desires  of  larger  bodies  of  people. 
These  movements  toward  centralization  have,  on  the 
whole,  done  much  to  raise  the  standards  of  the  schools ; 
and  there  is  more  yet  to  Be  accomplished  along  these  lines. 
Yet  they  have  undoubtedly  contributed  to  the  secularizing 
of  the  schools.  Whereas  the  single  district  may  be  com- 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  19 

paratively  homogeneous,  the  larger  unit  is  heterogeneous. 
If  left  to  itself,  the  single  district  might  well  have  its 
school  teach  the  common  religious  beliefs  of  its  citizens ; 
but  when  that  district  becomes  part  of  a  county  or  State 
organization  which  sets  certain  standards,  without  includ¬ 
ing  such  religious  instruction,  the  tendency  is  to  neglect 
or  minimize  it.  Most  States,  moreover,  have  laws  for¬ 
bidding  the  appropriation  of  public  school  funds  to 
schools  in  which  sectarian  teaching  is  permitted  or  sec¬ 
tarian  textbooks  used.  It  should  perhaps  be  added  that 
no  State  has  a  law  forbidding  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  its 
schools,  although  the  Superior  Court  of  California  has 
recently  declared  the  King  James’  Version  of  the  Bible  a 
sectarian  book.  A  number  of  States,  on  the  contrary, 
have  laws  specifically  requiring  or  permitting  the  Bible  to 
be  read  in  the  schools,  forbidding  its  exclusion  from 
them,  or  stating  that  it  shall  not  be  deemed  a  sectarian 
book. 

(5)  The  Growth  of  Knowledge  and  the  Development 
of  the  Sciences  and  Arts. — The  expanding  of  the  curric¬ 
ulum  of  our  schools  has  helped  to  crowd  religion  out. 
One  who  studies  the  early  American  schools  cannot  rid 
himself  of  the  impression  of  how  poor  was  their  equip¬ 
ment  ;  how  meager  was  their  curriculum ;  how  few  books 
the  children  had ;  and,  in  short,  how  amazingly  little  people 
knew  about  the  world  in  which  they  were  living,  in  the 
days  before  trains,  steamships,  machinery,  and  the  science 
and  invention  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Children  in 
the  schools  read  much  in  the  Psalter,  Testament,  and 
Bible,  partly  because  other  books  were  scarce;  and  the 
catechism  occupied  the  place  it  did  in  the  curriculum 
partly  because  there  was  no  other  body  of  knowledge 
robust  enough  to  displace  it. 

To  realize  how  changed  the  situation  now  is,  one  has 
but  to  turn  to  the  early  part  of  this  chapter,  where  were 
listed  some  of  the  great  variety  of  subjects  which  are 


20  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


taught  in  the  public  schools  of  today;  or  remind  himself 
of  some  of  the  things  that  he  would  like  to  know,  books 
that  he  would  like  to  read  and  subjects  that  he  would  like 
to  take  up,  but  does  not  for  lack  of  time.  The  world  is 
rich  in  knowledge  and  power — so  rich  that  it  is  in  danger 
of  over-reaching  itself  and  forgetting  what  are  the  real 
values  of  life.  And  the  curricula  of  our  schools  are  over¬ 
crowded  with  new  subjects  and  new  materials,  so  that 
teachers  are  hard  pressed  to  find  time  for  them  all.  Un¬ 
doubtedly,  this  influx  of  new  knowledge  has  had  much  to 
do,  at  least  since  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
with  the  dropping  out  of  religion  and  religious  material 
from  the  schools.  This  has  not  necessarily  involved  any 
despite  of  religion ;  it  has  taken  place  simply  because  room 
had  to  be  given  to  the  new  interests  which  the  years 
have  kept  bringing  in  such  abundance,  and  because  it  was 
felt  that  we  could  rely  for  the  teaching  of  religion  upon 
the  influences  and  precepts  of  home  and  Church  and 
Sunday  School. 

3.  The  Danger  of  the  Present  Educational 
Situation 

Even  if  the  Churches  of  America  could  over-night 
acquire  a  new  conscience  with  respect  to  their  educational 
responsibility,  an  adequate  corps  of  competent  teachers, 
and  a  completely  elaborated  curriculum  for  the  teaching 
of  religion;  and  if  they  could  at  the  same  time  mirac¬ 
ulously  get  into  touch  with  the  millions  of  children  and 
young  people  whom  they  are  at  present  failing  to  reach, 
the  problem  of  religious  education  in  this  country  would 
not  be  solved.  The  truth  is  that  the  secularization  of 
public  education  in  America  has  issued  in  a  situation 
fraught  with  danger .  The  situation  is  such  as  to  imperil, 
in  time,  the  future  of  religion  among  our  people,  and, 
with  religion,  the  future  of  the  nation  itself. 

“The  future  of  the  nation  itself,’’  we  have  said,  for 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  21 


religion  is  indispensable  to  the  highest  social  welfare. 
We  have  been  often  told  that  the  one  essential  qualifica¬ 
tion  for  democracy  is  widespread  intelligence.  But  this 
is  a  deceptive  and  dangerous  half-truth.  Men  have  not 
only  to  think  clearly  but  to  act  rightly.  Any  successful 
functioning  of  a  democratic  society  requires  on  the  part 
of  the  rank  and  file  not  only  the  capacity  but  also  the  dis¬ 
position  to  act  for  the  common  good.  Qualifications  for 
good  citizenship  must  include  intelligence  and  character. 
The  development  of  right  motives  is  an  irreducible  element 
in  any  complete  education.  And  for  the  development  of 
motives  we  must  look  to  religion,  the  most  powerful  moral 
dynamic  in  the  world.  Without  it  we  cannot  hope  to 
undergird  modern  life  with  the  most  compelling  ideals 
and  motives. 

And  in  the  present  situation  in  our  system  of  public 
education  the  future  of  religion  is  in  danger.  This  is 
for  two  reasons.  First,  because  children  will  inevitably 
sense  the  discrepancy  between  the  elaborate  provision 
which  we  make,  through  the  public  schools,  for  their  edu¬ 
cation  in  everything  else  than  religion,  and  the  poverty 
of  the  provision  which  we  make  for  their  education  in 
religion.  Something  of  this  discrepancy  will  remain, 
however  generously  Churches  may  endow  and  equip  their 
own  schools,  which  they  may  provide  for  the  teaching  of 
religion  to  their  children.  The  Churches  can  never  com¬ 
pete  with  the  State  with  respect  either  to  the  portion  of 
the  children’s  time  which  they  can  command  or  to  the 
money  which  they  can  invest  in  education.  Religion,  if 
it  has  no  place  in  the  program  of  the  public  schools,  will 
always  wear  to  children  somewhat  of  the  air  of  an  extra 
or  an  afterthought. 

Will  not  our  children,  if  this  situation  continues,  come 
to  regard  religion  as  not  very  important  after  all,  since  it 
is  the  one  thing  which  we  seem  not  to  value  enough  to 
give  it  a  place  in  the  very  elaborate  provision  which  we 
make  through  the  public  schools  for  their  education? 


22  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Or  they  may  regard  it  as  important,  but  as  something 
that  cannot  be  taught,  bearing  no  relation  to  the  affairs 
of  this  present  life  or  to  the  intelligence  which  has  been 
given  us  for  dealing  with  them.  Or  they  may  regard  it  as 
wholly  a  matter  of  individual  taste  or  preference — a  sort 
of  fad  or  frill,  a  bit  of  the  embroidery  of  life,  belonging 
to  the  realm  of  personal  satisfaction  rather  than  that  of 
truth,  where  one  may  believe  anything  he  chooses,  and  is 
as  much  at  liberty  to  accept,  reject,  or  even  invent  doc¬ 
trines  as  he  is  free  to  like  or  dislike  a  yellow  landscape  of 
Turner.  Which  of  these  conclusions  would  be  worst  it 
is  hard  to  say.  But  will  not  some  such  inference  be  in¬ 
evitable  in  the  minds  of  children  who  face  the  discrepancy 
between  the  public  school  system  and  the  educational 
efforts  of  the  Churches? 

A  second  reason  why  the  present  situation  is  fraught 
with  peril  is  because  a  system  of  public  education  that 
gives  no  place  to  religion  is  not  in  reality  neutral,  but 
exerts  an  influence,  unintentional  though  it  may  be, 
against  religion.  For  the  principle  of  religious  freedom 
embodied  in  the  Constitution  of  this  country,  and  for  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State  which  it  guarantees,  we 
are  rightly  grateful.  But  surely  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State  must  not  be  so  construed  as  to  render  the  State 
a  fosterer  of  non-religion  or  atheism.  Yet  that  is  pre¬ 
cisely  what  is  in  danger  of  being  done.  A  strict  neutrality 
on  the  part  of  the  State  with  respect  to  religion  is  im¬ 
possible  in  the  exercise  of  its  educational  function.  For 
the  State  not  to  include  in  its  educational  program  a 
definite  recognition  of  the  place  and  value  of  religion  in 
human  life  is  to  convey  to  children,  with  all  of  the  prestige 
and  authority  of  the  schools  maintained  by  the  State,  the 
suggestion  that  religion  has  no  real  place  and  value.  We 
may  resist  the  negative  power  of  that  suggestion  by  the 
positively  religious  influences  of  home  and  Church.  But 
why  should  the  State  make  it  so  difficult?  Is  it  possible 
for  home  and  Church  to  win  out  finally  in  such  a  conflict 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  23 

of  educational  influences  ?  And  why  need  there  be  this 
conflict  ? 

As  the  public  schools  enlarge  their  scope,  the  negative 
suggestion  involved  in  their  omission  of  religion  becomes 
stronger.  When  the  public  schools  concerned  themselves 
with  but  a  fraction  of  life,  as  they  did  fifty  years  ago — 
when  they  did  little  more  than  drill  children  in  the  three 
R’s  and  transmit  to  them  a  meager,  conventional  heritage 
of  book-knowledge — when  much,  often  the  larger  part,  of 
education  was  gotten  outside  of  the  schools,  it  was  of  little 
consequence  that  the  interests  of  religion  were  not  pro¬ 
vided  for  in  their  program.  But  now ,  when  the  schools 
are  taking  on  the  dimensions  of  life  itself,  it  is  of  vital 
importance  that  the  transcript  and  epitome  of  life  which 
they  furnish  shall  be  true,  rightly  proportioned,  and  in¬ 
clusive  of  all  its  fundamental  values  and  interests.  The 
omission  of  religion  from  the  public  schools  of  today 
conveys  a  condemnatory  suggestion  to  the  minds  of  chil¬ 
dren  that  was  quite  impossible  a  generation  ago.  Its 
omission  from  the  “schools  of  tomorrow,”  to  use  the 
phrase  which  Professor  Dewey  has  chosen  as  title  of  one 
of  his  books,  will  be  yet  worse. 

It  may  not  be  necessary,  and  is  perhaps  unwise,  for  the 
State  to  include  the  actual  teaching  of  religion  in  the 
curriculum  of  the  public  schools.  It  is  necessary,  how¬ 
ever,  for  the  State,  in  its  educational  program  and  policy, 
to  afford  religion  such  a  recognition  as  will  offset  the 
condemnatory  suggestion  of  the  present  situation,  and 
help  children  to  appreciate  the  place  of  religion  in  human 
life.  Just  what  form  that  recognition  should  take  is  not 
yet  clear.  In  many  quarters  the  experiment  is  being  tried 
of  granting  credit  on  the  records  of  the  public  schools 
for  religious  education  conducted  in  a  responsible  way  out¬ 
side  their  bounds.  Elsewhere  the  public  schools  are 
granting  a  portion  of  time  to  the  Churches  for  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  religion.  At  a  later  point  we  shall  discuss  these 
and  similar  experiments.  Here  we  are  concerned  simply 


24  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

with  the  principle  of  the  State’s  recognition  of  religion 
through  its  schools,  not  with  the  form  which  that  recog¬ 
nition  may  take. 

The  fact  is  that  we  need  to  face,  in  a  more  thorough¬ 
going  fashion  than  has  yet  been  done  in  this  country,  the 
question  of  the  relation  of  religion  to  public  education. 
Two  principles  have  been  established  which  touch  bed¬ 
rock — the  principle  of  religious  freedom  and  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  public  education  for  citizenship  in  a  democracy. 
These  principles  must  stand ;  they  are  at  the  foundation 
of  the  structure  of  liberty.  But  we  have  -  followed  the 
obvious,  easy  line  of  least  resistance  in  the  process  which 
has  led  to  the  present  secularization  of  our  schools.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  the  principles  just  named  demand  or 
imply  the  degree  and  type  of  secularization  which  has 
been  brought  about.  The  question  must  be  raised  as  to 
just  how  far  this  secularization  necessarily  follows  from 
the  principles  to  which  we  are  committed,  and  how  far, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  attributed  to  factual  and 
adventitious  elements  of  circumstance.  We  have  too  easily 
acquiesced  in  the  dogma  that,  in  view  of  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State,  the  public  schools  can  have  nothing  to 
do  with  religion.  It  is  time  to  stop  and  determine  what 
the  principle  of  the  separation  of  Church  and  State  in¬ 
volves,  and  what  it  does  not  involve,  with  respect  to  the 
education  of  children,  which  is  so  obviously  a  function 
of  both. 

Two  considerations  give  ground  for  hope  that  a  way 
out  of  the  present  dangerous  situation  is  possible  without 
compromise  of  either  principle.  One  is  the  fact  that  the 
secularization  of  public  education  in  this  country  has  been 
incidental  rather  than  purposed.  The  other  is  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  Churches  themselves,  or  members  of  the 
Churches,  who  have  been  chiefly  responsible  for  it.  Even 
the  religious  heterogeneity  of  our  population  does  not 
necessitate  the  present  degree  of  exclusion  of  religion 
from  public  education.  It  is  because  we  have  held  our 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  25 

different  religious  views  and  practices  in  so  jealous , 
divisive ,  and  partisan  a  fashion  that  the  State  has  been 
obliged  to  withdraw  religion  from  the  curriculum  and 
program  of  its  schools.  It  is  significant  that  while  religion 
is  often  ignored  in  the  constitutional  and  legislative  pro¬ 
visions  of  the  several  States  concerning  public  education, 
it  is  almost  never  forbidden  or  declared  against,  although 
laws  against  sectarianism  in  the  schools  abound. 

Can  the  Churches  of  America  become  less  sectarian 
and  more  religious  in  their  attitude  toward  the  education 
of  their  children?  If  they  can,  the  greater  obstacle  to  a 
proper  recognition  of  religion  by  the  public  schools  will 
be  removed.  No  less  urgent  than  the  call  to  Christian 
unity  that  comes  from  the  mission  field  or  the  realm  of  a 
disordered  international  life,  is  the  call  of  the  present  edu¬ 
cational  situation  in  America.  If  our  children  and  our 
children’s  children  are  to  give  to  religion  its  rightful  place 
in  life  and  education,  the  Churches  must  come  together 
in  mutual  understanding  and  must  cooperate,  more  largely 
and  more  responsibly  than  they  have  hitherto  done,  in  a 
common  educational  policy.  Only  thus  can  they  compete 
with  the  public  school  for  the  attention,  interest,  and 
respect  of  children.  Only  thus  can  they  rise  above  the 
necessity  of  competition  and  make  it  possible  for  the 
public  school  to  cooperate  with  them  instead  of  ignoring 
them. 

The  way  out  of  the  present  situation  lies  with  the 
Churches.  It  is  because  we  have  here  not  the  State  and 
the  Church,  nor  even  the  State  and  a  group  of  cooperat¬ 
ing  Churches,  but  rather  the  State  and  half  a  hundred 
disagreeing  Churches,  without  a  common  educational 
purpose  or  policy,  and  most  of  them  without  a  well- 
defined  educational  policy  of  their  own,  that  it  has  been 
necessary  for  the  State,  in  the  fulfilment  of  its  educational 
function,  to  pass  the  Churches  by.  Let  that  situation 
cease,  let  the  Churches  agree  on  an  educational  policy 
with  respect  both  to  their  own  teaching  work  and  to  the 


2 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


sort  of  recognition  they  desire  that  religion  be  afforded 
by  and  in  the  public  schools,  let  them  do  their  share  of 
the  work  of  education  in  a  way  that  merits  recognition, 
and  a  fit  measure  of  recognition  is  made  possible  and  will 
almost  certainly  follow. 

In  saying  this  we  have  in  mind  primarily  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  this  country.  But  an  understanding  as  to 
the  relation  of  religion  to  public  education  must  also  be 
reached  with  the  Jewish  and  Roman  Catholic  Churches. 
This  should  not  be  difficult  in  the  case  of  the  Jews,  whose 
religion  is  primarily  ethical,  who  possess  a  great  religious 
heritage  to  which  we  all  lay  claim,  and  who  believe  in  the 
principle  of  public  education  for  citizenship  in  a  democ¬ 
racy.  It  will  be  difficult,  doubtless,  in  the  case  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  does  not  believe  in  the 
principle  of  public  education. 

Let  us  be  clear  as  to  the  cause  of  the  difficulties  which 
have  stood,  and  are  likely  to  stand,  in  the  way  of  attempts 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  Catholic  Church. 
It  is  not  simply  because  the  Catholic  view  of  religion  and 
of  the  Church  is  different  from  the  Protestant,  or  because 
Catholics  persist  in  regarding  theirs  as  the  only  holy  and 
apostolic  Church  and  others  as  rebellious  sects.  It  is, 
more  than  this,  because  the  Catholic  Church  does  not  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  principle  of  public  education  which  has  become 
established  in  the  life  of  America.  The  State,  according 
to  its  belief,  has  no  primary  right  or  function  as  an 
educator  of  children;  that  right  and  function  belong 
to  the  parent,  and  rest  ultimately  upon  the  Church.  Edu¬ 
cation  as  a  whole  is  a  unitary  process,  they  hold,  which 
must  include  religion  at  every  point;  and  the  State  is  not 
competent  to  teach  religion.  The  State  may  therefore 
levy  and  collect  taxes  for  the  support  of  schools,  and  may 
set  standards  which  it  requires  schools  to  maintain  in 
certain  subjects;  but  it  is  the  business  of  the  Church  to 
carry  on,  through  schools  of  the  Church,  the  education  of 
childhood  and  youth.  A  system  of  Church  schools,  sub- 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  27 

sidized  by  the  State,  is  the  policy  which  this  Church  aims 
to  realize  in  America.  Its  authorities  object  to  what  they 
deem  to  be  the  injustice  of  the  present  situation,  in  that 
Catholics  are  taxed  to  support  the  public  schools,  to  which 
they  do  not  send  their  children,  while  the  State  refuses 
to  return  to  them  any  share  of  these  taxes  for  the  support 
of  their  Church  schools,  for  the  maintenance  of  which 
they  are,  in  effect,  taxed  again. 

That  America  should  surrender  the  principle  of  public 
education  for  citizenship  in  a  democracy  is  unthinkable. 
Yet  that  is  what  accession  to  the  Catholic  proposal  for  a 
division  of  the  public  funds  would  involve.  This  demand 
on  the  part  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  faced  in  many 
sections  of  the  country  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  final  result  that  almost  all  of  the  States 
passed  constitutional  provisions  forbidding  the  appropria¬ 
tion  of  any  public  funds  for  the  support  of  sectarian 
schools.  The  only  hope  of  securing  public  subsidies  for 
parochial  schools  lies  in  gaining  a  sufficient  majority  to 
repeal  these  constitutional  provisions. 

It  is  hard  for  Catholic  and  Protestant  to  understand 
each  other  at  this  point.  To  the  Protestant,  the  Cath¬ 
olic  principle  of  subsidies  for  parochial  education  would 
involve  the  break-up  of  the  American  public  school  sys¬ 
tem,  since  the  privilege  granted  to  the  Catholics  must  in 
equity  be  granted  to  other  Churches,  and  possibly,  indeed, 
to  other  groups,  such  as  political  parties  and  trade  unions. 
The  Catholic  Church  cannot  be  the  one  exception.  The 
Catholic,  on  the  other  hand,  claims  to  be  no  enemy  of  the 
public  schools,  which  he  is  content  that  non-Catholics 
should  keep,  and  he  can  see  no  reason  why  his  Church 
should  not  be  the  only  exception,  since,  in  his  view,  it  is 
the  one  true  Church  and  no  other  group  holds  to  just  its 
theory  of  education. 

Yet  mutual  understanding  is  possible.  Catholics  are 
serving  on  many  public-school  boards  and  are  teaching  in 
many  public  schools,  to  the  satisfaction  of  citizens  gen- 


28  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


erally,  of  whatever  creed.  And  in  a  number  of  the  cities 
and  towns  where  experiments  in  week-day  religious  edu¬ 
cation  are  being  conducted,  in  cooperation  with  the  public 
schools,  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  Churches  have  joined 
in  the  agreement  which  made  the  experiment  possible. 
Catholic  and  Protestant  alike  desire  the  religious  educa¬ 
tion  of  their  children.  They  differ  in  that  the  Catholic 
holds  that  the  whole  of  education,  to  be  religiously 
motived,  must  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Church,  whereas  the 
Protestant  believes  that  the  Church  can  so  cooperate  with 
the  public  school  as  to  make  religion  effective  in  educa¬ 
tion,  even  though  the  whole  process  be  not  under  the 
Church’s  control.  The  Catholic  has  fairly  well  established 
the  proof  of  his  theory :  it  does  succeed  in  training  good 
Catholics.  It  remains  for  the  Protestant  to  prove  that  his 
theory  will  work;  for  it  has  not  really  been  tried,  in 
thoroughgoing  fashion,  under  the  conditions  of  modern 
life.  If  the  Protestant  Churches  will  try  it  and  succeed, 
it  is  not  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  the  Catholic 
Church  in  this  country  may  modify  its  policy  of  reliance 
upon  parochial  education  and  move  in  the  direction  of  a 
larger  dependence  upon  the  public  schools,  with  correlated 
religious  education  in  Church  schools. 

4.  The  Necessity  for  a  New  Conscience  on  the 
Church’s  Educational  Responsibility 

The  secularization  of  the  public  school  in  America  has 
thus  thrown  an  unprecedented  responsibility  for  religious 
education  upon  the  Church.  That  the  Church  has  not  yet 
fulfilled  this  responsibility  all  would  agree.  The  Churches 
of  the  nineteenth  century  rendered  splendid  and  sacri¬ 
ficial  service  to  higher  education  by  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  academies  and  colleges ;  but  they  failed, 
as  a  rule,  to  conceive  in  educational  terms  their  relation 
to  the  religious  nurture  of  children,  or  to  realize  fully  the 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  29 

educational  task  which  was  being  thrown  upon  them  by 
the  increasing  secularization  of  the  public  schools. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  catechetical  instruction  de¬ 
clined  even  in  the  Churches ;  and  these  depended  generally, 
save  in  the  more  liturgical  communions,  upon  successive 
waves  of  spiritual  revival  for  the  conversion  and  enlist¬ 
ment  even  of  the  children  of  their  own  members.  Most 
Churches  had  no  definite,  well-planned  policy  for  the 
religious  education  of  children;  or,  what  amounts  to  the 
same  thing,  their  policy  was  one  of  opportunism.  They 
surrendered  the  religious  education  of  the  children  to 
various  voluntary  associations  and  agencies  which  sprang 
up,  in  more  or  less  loose  connection  with  the  Churches,  to 
meet  different  specific  needs.  The  most  important  and' 
widely  effective  of  these  voluntary  agencies  was  the 
Sunday  School,  which  has  been  for  more  than  a  century 
the  institution  upon  which  the  Churches  have  relied. 

The  initiation  and  wide  adoption  of  the  International 
Uniform  Sunday  School  Lesson  system  in  1872  was  a 
great  step  forward.  These  lessons  were  “uniform’'  in 
two  senses :  first,  in  that  practically  all  the  schools  of  all 
save  two  or  three  communions  united  in  adopting  this 
system  of  lessons ;  second,  in  that  there  was  but  one 
lesson  provided  for  all  the  pupils  in  the  school,  of  what¬ 
ever  age  and  grade.  In  the  first  sense  of  the  term,  the 
uniformity  of  the  Sunday  school  lessons  has  constituted 
one  of  the  most  widespread  and  significant  instances,  in 
the  history  of  Protestantism,  of  cooperation  between  the 
denominations.  In  the  second  sense  of  the  term,  the  uni¬ 
formity  of  the  lessons  seems  to  have  been  a  necessary 
step  in  the  development  of  the  Sunday  School,  and  did 
much  to  establish  its  place  as  the  foremost  agency  of  Bible 
study. 

This  uniformity,  however,  has  increasingly  become  a 
limitation,  standing  in  the  way  of  the  fuller  development 
and  larger  usefulness  of  the  Sunday  school  as  an  institu¬ 
tion  of  religious  education.  The  Uniform  lesson  system 


30  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


is  not  pupil-centered;  it  fails  to  make  provision  for  the 
successive  stages  in  the  child’s  moral  and  religious  devel¬ 
opment,  and  affords  no  special  guidance  or  nurture  in 
those  periods  which  are  generally  recognized  as  of  critical 
importance.  It  contains  within  itself  no  principle  of  pro¬ 
gression,  for  the  same  lesson  is  taught  to  old  and  young, 
and  the  pupil,  caught  in  an  endlessly  repetitious  cycle,  is 
not  able  to  feel  himself  advancing  from  grade  to  grade. 
For  this  reason  it  does  not  permit  of  any  real  correlation 
or  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  pupil’s  education  in 
public  school  and  college.  Since  it  must  provide  a  series 
of  lesson  topics  which  can  be  used  by  everyone  in  the 
school,  the  Lesson  Committee  is  restricted  in  its  choice  to 
materials  which  lie  in  general  at  about  the  level  of  the 
comprehension  of  pupils  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age. 
Lessons  so  chosen  are  often  unsuited,  necessarily,  to  the 
understanding  and  religious  needs  of  little  children  in  the 
primary  grades ;  and  are  inadequate  to  the  intellectual, 
moral,  and  religious  needs  of  the  more  mature  young 
people  and  adults. 

The  Uniform  lesson  system,  moreover,  is  weak  at  just 
the  point  which  has  sometimes  mistakenly  been  cited  as 
one  of  its  elements  of  strength;  it  does  not  afford  to  pupils 
a  proper  acquaintance  with  the  Bible  and  knowledge  of  its 
content.  This  is  in  part  due  to  the  policy  of  publishing 
the  text  of  the  lessons,  together  with  comments  upon  them, 
in  paper-bound  quarterlies  which  in  too  many  schools  take 
the  place  entirely  of  the  Bible.  For  a  time  this  policy 
of  the  publishers  even  operated  to  determine  the  length 
of  the  passages  chosen  as  material  for  lessons ;  and  it  yet 
causes  the  Committee,  when  it  chooses  a  lesson  too  long 
to  be  published  in  this  way,  to  make  a  further  selection 
of  a  brief  passage  to  be  printed.  But  the  great  source  of 
weakness  lies  deeper,  in  a  limitation  inherent  in  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  lesson  uniformity  and  inescapable  as  long  as  that 
principle  is  adhered  to.  The  attempt  to  choose  passages 
from  the  Bible  which  can  serve  as  a  common  body  of 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  31 

lesson  material  for  all  in  the  school,  from  oldest  to  young¬ 
est,  results  necessarily  in  an  over-emphasis  of  the  narrative 
portions  of  the  Bible,  especially  those  shorter  passages 
describing  incidents  which  lend  themselves  readily  to  the 
drawing  of  distinct  moral  inferences,  to  the  relative  neglect 
of  the  Psalms,  the  writings  of  the  great  Prophets,  the 
Wisdom  literature,  and  the  Epistles.  Yet  the  portions 
of  the  Bible  thus  slighted  are,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Gospels,  the  highest  in  religious  value.  The  tendency  of 
the  Uniform  lessons,  in  view  of  these  limitations,  is  to 
afford  to  pupils  but  a  fragmentary  knowledge  of  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Hebrew  people  and  the  early  Church,  and  to 
give  them  almost  no  conception  of  the  richness  of  the 
literature  contained  in  the  Bible  and  of  the  sweep  and 
perspective  of  God’s  progressive  revelation  of  Himself  in 
this  literature  and  in  the  life  which  it  records. 

In  the  ungraded  character  of  their  curriculum,  resulting 
from  the  application  of  the  principle  of  uniformity,  lay 
the  fundamental  weakness  of  the  Sunday  Schools  of  the 
later  nineteenth  century.  Other  elements  of  weakness,  in 
large  part  consequences  of  this  primary  educational  defect, 
must  also  be  recognized. 

(a)  The  small  amount  of  time  given  to  actual  teach¬ 
ing  in  the  classes,  averaging  not  more  than  half  an  hour 
a  week,  often  less. 

(b)  Lack  of  training  on  the  part  of  the  teachers,  and 
a  too  great  reliance  by  Sunday  School  leaders  generally, 
upon  “institute”  and  “convention”  methods  as  a  substitute 
for  more  definite  training. 

(c)  The  fact  that  their  program  was  too  exclusively 
one  of  instruction,  not  affording  sufficient  opportunity  for 
the  expression  of  the  truths  taught  or  for  learning  through 
doing.  The  result  was  that  there  sprang  up  within  the 
churches  a  number  of  other  organizations  for  the  train¬ 
ing  of  children  and  young  people  in  wholesome  social 
living  and  in  the  attitudes,  habits,  and  group  activities 
associated  with  various  forms  of  Christian  service.  In 


32  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

many  churches  these  organizations — such  as  mission 
bands,  boys’  brigades,  Christian  Endeavor  Societies,  Scout 
troops,  King’s  Daughters — operate  more  or  less  inde¬ 
pendently,  without  relation  to  the  Sunday  School,  and 
with  policies  and  programs  determined  by  their  district, 
state,  and  national  affiliations  rather  than  by  their  place 
within  the  local  Church’s  educational  system.  There  is 
duplication,  overlapping,  and  competition  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  on  the  other,  failure  to  provide  fully  for  all  ages  and 
sexes.  There  is  always  educational  inefficiency  involved 
in  a  situation  which  leaves  instruction  and  activity  sun¬ 
dered — the  Sunday  School  with  a  program  of  instruction 
unapplied  in  the  group  life  of  its  pupils,  and  the  other 
organizations  with  programs  of  activity  unrelated  to  the 
instruction  which  their  members  are  receiving  week 
after  week  in  the  Sunday  School. 

(d)  These  Sunday  Schools  too  often  lacked  organic 
connection  with  the  Church.  They  were  conducted  by 
voluntary  associations  of  teachers,  and  maintained  by 
their  own  “collections.”  The  Church  gave  to  such  a 
school  a  home  and  the  sanction  of  its  name,  but  undertook 
no  financial  responsibility  for  its  maintenance  and  no 
direct  supervision  of  its  teaching  or  determination  of  its 
policies,  relying  simply  upon  the  fact  that  the  greater 
number  of  its  officers  and  teachers  were,  as  individuals, 
members  of  the  Church,  to  insure  the  general  sympathy 
of  the  school  with  the  Church’s  belief  and  practical  pro¬ 
gram.  While  it  may  be  granted  that  this  loose  association 
of  a  Sunday  School  with  a  Church  in  many  cases  worked 
well,  it  is  in  principle  unsound.  And  too  often  it  did  not 
work  well.  Some  Sunday  Schools  failed  to  beget  within 
their  pupils  a  true  sense  of  their  relation  to  the  Church, 
to  inculcate  loyalty  to  the  Church,  and  to  lead  to  active 
Church  membership  and  to  growth  in  grace  within  the 
Church.  And  many  Churches  failed  to  assume  their  full 
responsibility  for  what  ought  to  be  the  school  of  the 
Church,  maintained  by  the  Church  as  a  part  of  its  con- 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  33 

tribution  to  the  education  of  children.  Even  to-day, 
some  of  the  great  denominations  which  are  splendidly 
organized  for  the  conduct  of  home  and  foreign  missions 
and  for  the  maintenance  or  partial  support  of  colleges 
and  theological  seminaries,  fail  to  assume  anything  like 
the  same  degree  of  responsibility  for  their  Sunday 
Schools  or  even  to  express  a  like  degree  of  interest  in 
their  work. 

These  elements  of  weakness  are  no  longer  characteristic 
of  the  more  progressive  of  the  Sunday  Schools  of  to-day. 
The  past  quarter-century  has  witnessed  a  great  movement 
among  the  Protestant  Churches  of  America  toward  clearer 
aims,  better  methods,  and  the  assumption  of  more  definite 
responsibility  in  the  field  of  religious  education.  There 
has  been  a  gradual  development  of  the  movement  for 
graded  lessons  since  the  late  eighties  till  in  1908  the  In¬ 
ternational  Sunday  School  Lesson  Committee  began  to 
issue  a  graded  series.  In  1914  the  Committee  was  re¬ 
organized  to  include  official  representatives  of  all  the 
denominations  which  use  its  lesson  courses.  It  also  de¬ 
cided  to  issue,  in  place  of  the  old  type  of  uniform  lesson, 
what  it  called  an  Improved  Uniform  Lesson,  which  under¬ 
took  to  introduce  the  principle  of  the  adaptation  of  lesson 
material  to  the  needs  of  pupils  of  various  ages,  while  still 
adhering  in  a  general  way  to  the  principle  of  uniformity. 
In  1920  the  Committee  decided  to  move  as  rapidly  as 
possible  towards  the  issuance  of  graded  lessons  only.  Be¬ 
ginning  with  1924,  it  is  putting  this  policy  into  effect  by 
substituting  for  the  Uniform  Lesson,  for  children  under 
twelve  years,  graded  lessons  of  two  types — graded  by 
years  and  by  three-year  age-groups. 

The  organization  of  the  Religious  Education  Associa¬ 
tion  in  1903,  “to  inspire  the  educational  forces  of  our 
country  with  the  religious  ideal,  to  inspire  the  religious 
forces  of  our  country  with  the  educational  ideal,  and  to 
keep  before  the  public  mind  the  ideal  of  religious  educa¬ 
tion  and  the  sense  of  its  need  and  value”;  the  organiza- 


34  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tion  in  1910  of  the  Sunday  School  Council  of  Evangelical 
Denominations,  an  indication  of  the  more  definite  accept¬ 
ance  by  the  denominations  themselves  of  responsibility  for 
educational  work ;  the  beginning  of  the  Council  of  Church 
Boards  of  Education  in  1912  as  an  agency  for  cooperative 
effort  in  behalf  of  Christian  colleges  and  the  religious 
welfare  of  college  and  university  students,  mark  impor¬ 
tant  steps  in  the  development  of  educational  progress.  In 
1920  a  reorganization  was  begun  of  the  International 
Sunday  School  Association,  the  older  body,  and  the  Sun¬ 
day  School  Council  of  Evangelical  Denominations,  which 
has  now  culminated  in  their  merger  in  the  International 
Sunday  School  Council  of  Religious  Education  and  larger 
cooperation  of  the  agencies  of  the  Churches  in  their 
educational  task. 

These  dates  and  items  represent  but  a  few  outstanding 
factors  in  a  movement  greater  far  than  any  single  organ¬ 
ization  or  group  of  organizations.  The  fact  is  that  we 
have  begun  to  experience  a  genuine  educational  revival 
in  the  Churches.  Thousands  of  Sunday  Schools  the 
country  over  have  been  graded,  have  broadened  their 
vision  and  enriched  their  curricula.  In  some  communities 
week-day  schools  of  religion  have  been  established,  either 
by  single  Churches  or  by  the  cooperative  effort  of  the 
Protestant  Churches.  Problems  of  curriculum,  methods, 
and  organization  are  being  studied  in  an  experimental, 
scientific  way.  New  buildings  are  being  erected  for  their 
schools  by  the  more  progressive  Churches,  designed  with 
a  view  to  their  educational  utility  and  furnished  with 
adequate  material  equipment.  Classes  for  the  training  of 
teachers  are  now  frequent  and  community  training  schools 
are  increasing.  Thousands  of  teachers  and  prospective 
teachers  of  religion  gather  for  one  to  three  weeks  of 
training  in  summer  schools  conducted  by  several  denom¬ 
inations  and  by  other  organizations.  Not  a  few  Churches 
are  employing  paid  teachers  of  religion  and  directors  of 
religious  education.  Attention  is  at  last  being  given 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  35 

to  working  out  a  basis  of  correlation  between  religious 
and  public  education.  Courses  in  religious  education  have 
been  organized  and  professorships  of  religious  education 
established  in  colleges  and  theological  seminaries,  so  that 
young  men  who  are  now  entering  the  Christian  ministry 
are  being  trained  not  simply  to  preach  and  to  care  for  a 
parish  but  to  direct  the  educational  work  of  a  Church. 

Yet  the  Church  has  still  a  long  way  to  go.  We  are  still 
inexcusably  far  from  making  any  adequate  provision  for 
the  religious  education  of  our  children.  The  thought  and 
energy  of  the  Church  are  still  centered  chiefly  around  the 
appeal  to  adults.  It  has  not  “set  the  child  in  the  midst.”  It 
has  not  come  to  a  realization  of  its  appalling  loss  of 
opportunity  and  waste  of  resources  by  not  directing  its 
best  attention  to  the  years  before  life  has  become  “set”  in 
fixed  habits  and  customs  and  ideas.  Religious  education 
by  most  Churches  is  still  regarded  as  a  sort  of  appendage 
to  their  main  business.  The  average  church  often  in¬ 
cludes  in  its  budget  no  item  for  religious  education;  the 
Sunday  School  is  left  to  support  itself  out  of  the  children’s 
pennies.  The  average  church  building  has  been  erected 
without  thought  of  adequate  facilities  for  any  real  educa¬ 
tional  work.  Consecration  and  piety  are  frequently  re¬ 
garded  as  the  only  essential  qualifications  for  teaching. 
In  the  words  of  an  educator  who  has  devoted  most  of  his 
life  to  the  public  school  and  is  now  giving  his  efforts  to 
religious  education  :  “A  Church  organized  for  educational 
purposes  is  the  exception.  The  evidences  of  this  are  found 
in  the  meager  program,  lack  of  trained  teachers,  and  the 
absence  of  any  semblance  of  supervision.”  8 

Even  if  all  the  Sunday  Schools  were  thoroughly  de¬ 
veloped  as  educational  institutions,  they  would  be  reaching 
only  a  fraction  of  the  children  and  youth  of  our  country. 
The  Committee  on  Education  of  the  International  Sunday- 

*J.  E.  Stout,  “Organization  and  Administration  of  Religious 
Education,”  New  York,  1922,  pp.  277-278. 


36  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


School  Council  of  Religious  Education  is  responsible  for 
the  statement  that  probably  27,000,000  persons  in  America, 
under  25  years  of  age,  belonging  to  what  would  normally 
be  the  Protestant  group,  are  not  in  any  Sunday  School 
or  cradle  roll  department,  or  in  touch  with  any  organized 
religious  instruction ;  that  perhaps  two  out  of  every  three 
nominally  Protestant  children  under  25  years  of  age 
receive  no  formal  religious  education;  that  of  the  whole 
population  under  25,  including  Catholic,  Protestant,  and 
Jewish  constituencies,  hardly  more  than  three  out  of  ten 
are  enrolled  for  any  kind  of  religious  instruction ;  that  on 
the  average  Sunday  school,  meeting  only  an  hour  or  less 
a  week  and  possessing  altogether  insufficient  equipment 
and  resources,  has  been  thrown  a  burden  which  it  has 
been  utterly  impossible  for  it  to  carry. 

It  need  not  surprise  us,  therefore,  that  it  was  the  well- 
nigh  unanimous  testimony  of  those  who  were  closely  in 
touch  with  religious  work  in  the  Army  that  these  men, 
who  were  simply  our  ordinary  youth  under  particularly 
revealing  circumstances,  displayed  an  astonishing  lack  of 
comprehension  as  to  what  the  Christian  religion  is.  On 
no  point  did  those  who  assisted  in  making  the  inquiry  into 
the  Army,  with  a  view  to  gaining  fresh  insights  into  the 
nature  of  “religion  among  American  men,”  find  so  little 
dissenting  opinion  as  this — that  the  young  men  who  have 
been,  nominally  at  least,  under  the  Church’s  teaching 
generally  have  most  hazy  and  inadequate  ideas  about 
Christianity  and  its  meaning  for  human  life.  So  the 
report  frankly  declares : 

“If  there  is  any  one  point  upon  which  chaplains  agree 
it  is  in  regard  to  the  widespread  ignorance  as  to  the 
meaning  of  Christianity  and  Church  membership.  .  .  . 
We  might  well  hope  that  in  a  ‘Christian’  country  men 
generally,  even  those  without  any  allegiance  to  Christ  and 
His  Church,  would  know  what  Christianity  is.  Chaplains 
say  that  they  do  not  know.  And  they  go  beyond  that  and 
say  that  men  nominally  within  the  Church,  men  who  have 
been  to  Christian  schools,  are  in  much  the  same  condi- 


SECULARIZATION  OF  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  37 

tion.  .  .  .  The  Church  as  a  teacher  has  failed  to  instruct 
its  own  membership  and  present  its  Gospel  to  the  men 
just  outside  its  doors.  If  we  learn  our  lesson  the  result 
will  be  a  vastly  greater  emphasis  on  our  teaching 
function.”  9 

Evidence  could  be  multiplied  to  show  that  the  other 
educational  forces  of  the  Church  do  not  make  up  the 
deficiency  of  the  Sunday  School.  The  influence  of  the 
home,  most  important  of  all  as  a  teacher  of  religion,  has 
been  seriously  undermined  by  conditions  of  our  modern 
life.  The  pulpit,  as  a  teaching  agency,  has  been  fatally 
weak,  confining  itself  far  too  much  to  the  role  of  exhorter 
and  neglecting  the  Apostle’s  insistent  injunction  that  the 
minister  must  be  “apt  to  teach.”  Mission  study  groups, 
young  people’s  societies,  Young  Men’s  and  Young 
Women’s  Christian  Associations,  Scout  troops — these  and 
other  influences  contribute  important  educational  results, 
but  the  very  fact  that  they  are  all  fragmentary  and  dis¬ 
jointed  efforts,  instead  of  parts  of  a  unified  and  a  con¬ 
sciously  rounded  program  of  education  for  the  Church  as 
a  whole,  shows  how  far  it  has  to  go  before  it  can  claim 
to  have  made  earnest  with  its  inescapable  duty  as  a 
teacher  of  the  Christian  religion. 

9  “Religion  among  American  Men.”  Association  Press,  1920, 

pp.  14,  131. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE 

CHURCH 

In  a  general  but  vital  and  fundamental  sense  the  whole 
life  of  the  Christian  Church  is  an  educational  enterprise , 
and  its  entire  work  is  that  of  teaching. 

This  appears  in  the  fact  that  the  Church  as  a  whole 
bears  all  the  typical  characteristics  of  any  educational 
enterprise.  The  marks  of  an  educational  enterprise  are : 
(a)  that  it  concerns  itself  with  growing,  developing  per¬ 
sons  ;  (b)  that  it  seeks  to  engage  these  persons  definitely 
in  some  form  of  study  or  purposeful  activity;  (c)  that 
its  primary  interest,  in  so  doing,  is  the  development  of 
the  persons  themselves,  rather  than  the  objective  results 
of  their  activity;  (d)  that  it  seeks  to  communicate  to 
them,  while  they  in  turn  seek  to  profit  by,  the  riper  ex¬ 
perience  of  others;  (e)  that  the  whole  process  has  its 
face  set  toward  the  future,  aiming  to  promote  their  de¬ 
velopment,  and  to  help  them  gain  new  knowledge,  added 
power,  and  richer  character;  (f)  that  the  whole  process, 
again,  is  socially  motived,  both  in  that  it  implies  some  sort 
of  fellowship,  and  in  that  its  goal  is  the  betterment,  not 
merely  of  individuals,  but  of  human  society. 

All  of  these  marks  are  characteristic  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

i.  The  Whole  Work  of  the  Church  as  an  Educa¬ 
tional  Enterprise 

Like  other  educational  enterprises  the  primary  interest 
and  ultimate  concern  of  the  Church  is  with  persons,  not 
things.  However  mature  the  persons  may  be  who  are 

38 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH 


39 


associated  in  its  fellowship  or  come  within  the  range  of 
its  influence,  the  Church’s  attitude  toward  them  is  in 
certain  respects  like  that  which  the  world  in  general  as¬ 
sumes  toward  those  who  are  immature,  being  more  inter¬ 
ested  in  the  development  of  the  persons  themselves  than 
in  the  cold  appraisal  of  the  objective  results  of  their 
activity.  The  Church  sees  in  them  the  promise  and 
potency  of  eternal  life,  discerns  qualities  and  powers 
hardly  touched  by  the  surface  details  with  which  men  are 
so  prone  to  busy  themselves,  and  undertakes  to  call  forth 
these  powers  and  to  educate  for  time  and  for  eternity  the 
children  of  God.  Its  aim  for  them  is  fundamentally  ed¬ 
ucational,  “that  they  may  have  life  and  have  it  more 
abundantly.”  Toward  this  goal  of  a  more  abundant  life 
schools  of  various  sorts  take  their  pupils  part  of  the  way. 
The  Church,  convinced  that  no  one  reaches  that  goal  with¬ 
out  God,  seeks  to  promote  the  moral  and  spiritual  growth 
of  individuals  by  bringing  them  into  fellowship  with  God 
through  Christ. 

This  emphasis  on  the  concern  of  the  Church  for  persons 
does  not  mean  that  the  Church  is  not  interested  in  ex¬ 
ternal  conditions  or  objective  results.  It  aims  at  nothing 
less  than  the  regeneration  of  the  whole  of  life,  in  all  of 
its  social,  economic,  industrial,  and  political  relations. 
There  is  no  interest  so  specialized,  no  activity  so  “secu¬ 
lar,”  as  to  fall  wholly  without  its  purview.  But  the 
Church  values  objective  results  in  terms  of  their  effects 
upon  and  within  persons ;  and  it  believes  that  the  only 
way  to  secure  sound  and  lasting  objective  results  is 
through  the  education  and  upbuilding  of  the  persons 
involved.  In  this  the  Church  follows  its  Master.  Jesus 
was  a  Teacher,  though  He  kept  no  school  and  did  not  use 
the  formal  methods  of  the  professional  teachers  of  His 
day.  In  the  fundamental,  vital  sense  of  the  term  with 
which  we  are  here  concerned,  Jesus’  aim  and  method  were 
educational.  He  sought  to  establish  the  Kingdom  of  God 
in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men.  He  deliberately  rejected 


40  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  political  methods  that  were  open  to  Him ;  He  under¬ 
took  His  work  by  the  more  inward,  leaven-like  method  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual  education  of  persons. 

A  mistaken  antithesis  has  sometimes  been  drawn  be¬ 
tween  evangelistic  and  educational  ways  of  conceiving 
the  function  of  the  Church.  Those  who  believe  in 
religious  education  have  been  accused  of  ignoring  the 
grace  of  God  and  of  imagining  that  morality  and  religion 
may  be  educed  from  man  himself  or  grown  within  him 
by  processes  of  skilful  cultivation,  without  need  of  the 
regenerating  Spirit  of  God.  Those,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  have  usurped  to  themselves  the  name  of  evangelists, 
have  at  times  spoken  as  though  the  message  of  salvation 
were  preeminently  contained  in  Jesus’  comparison  of  the 
Spirit  to  the  wind,  which  “bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence 
it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth” ;  and  they  have  relied 
upon  spasmodic  revivals  of  religion  to  the  neglect  of  the 
more  sober,  constant,  and  constructive  methods  of  educa¬ 
tional  evangelism.  Less  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  debate 
was  still  waging  in  New  England  as  to  whether  there 
really  are  or  can  be  any  means  of  grace. 

It  cannot  be  urged  too  strongly  that  the  antithesis  thus 
set  up  is  mistaken  and  untrue.  A  scheme  of  Christian 
education  that  should  fail  to  take  account  of  man’s  de¬ 
pendence  upon  the  Spirit  of  God  would  contradict  the 
very  Gospel  which  it  undertakes  to  teach.  “By  grace  are 
ye  saved  through  faith,  and  that  not  of  yourselves;  it  is 
the  gift  of  God.”  But  the  Spirit  of  God  is  not  arbitrary; 
His  grace  does  not  baffle  expectation.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
species  of  atheism — unintended  yet  practical  atheism — 
to  deny  God’s  presence  and  power  in  the  natural  laws 
which  He  has  ordained  and  to  fail  to  recognize  in  these 
laws  the  accustomed  means  and  channels  of  His  will. 
Not  evangelism  or  education,  then,  is  the  alternative 
before  the  Church ;  its  work  is  that  of  evangelism  through 
education.  The  relation  is  organic;  these  terms  express 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  41 

different  aspects  merely  of  the  one  great  purpose  and 
work  for  which  the  Church  exists.  We  may  speak  with 
equal  propriety  of  educational  evangelism  or  of  evangel¬ 
istic  education. 

Writing  for  public-school  teachers  on  ‘‘Education  for 
Character,”  Professor  F.  C.  Sharp  has  insisted  that  the 
aim  of  moral  education  is  the  development  of  persons 
who  ( 1 )  know  what  is  right,  and  are  able  to  discover  the 
right  even  in  new  and  complex  situations;  (2)  appreciate, 
love,  and  desire  the  right;  (3)  do  what  is  right,  because 
they  have  acquired  the  necessary  energy,  skill,  and  self- 
control  to  make  their  knowledge  and  desire  pass  into 
action.  Religious  education  includes  all  that  moral  edu¬ 
cation  involves,  plus  the  recognition  of  the  presence  and 
power  of  God. 

The  term  plus,  in  this  connection,  may  be  misleading. 
It  expresses  the  truth  that  the  religious  education  which 
is  the  aim  of  the  Christian  Church  is  not  something  less, 
but  more,  than  moral  education.  It  becomes  misleading 
if  it  conveys  the  impression  that  this  more  is  a  matter  of 
simple  addition,  and  that  religious  education  differs  from 
moral  education  only  in  the  sense  that  God  is  one  more 
person  to  be  taken  into  account  and  that  eternity  is  an 
infinite  extension  of  time.  The  Christian  ethics  is  indis¬ 
solubly  bound  up  with  the  Christian  metaphysics ;  or  better, 
in  Christianity  ethics  and  metaphysics  are  organically  in¬ 
terdependent.  Christianity  is  a  way  of  life  which  is 
grounded  in  a  way  of  conceiving  the  universe — Jesus’ 
way  of  life,  rooted  in  Jesus’  way  of  conceiving  God  and 
the  world.  The  recognition  of  the  presence  and  power  of 
God  in  the  world  of  nature  and  in  the  life  of  men  makes 
a  difference  at  every  point.  Nothing  is  quite  the  same 
as  it  would  be  without  Him.  The  Christian  religion  in¬ 
fuses  a  new  motive  and  spirit  into  the  whole  of  moral 
education.  It  introduces  a  new  perspective  and  range 
into  the  materials  of  knowledge  and  moral  judgment ;  its 
appeal  to  the  powers  of  appreciation,  affection,  and  desire 


42  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

is  incomparably  stronger,  richer,  and  deeper ;  and  it 
assures  to  him  who  is  striving  for  self-control  and  moral 
strength  the  backing  of  the  universe ;  it  renders  available 
and  effective  the  power  and  grace  of  God. 

The  Church’s  teaching  work,  when  religious  education 
is  thus  conceived,  is  no  simple  task,  no  single  specialized 
department  among  others  in  a  complex  program  of  activi¬ 
ties.  It  is  rather  coextensive  with  the  Church’s  life  and 
fellowship.  It  is  itself  the  whole  complex  program. 

So  the  Church’s  educational  purpose  cannot  be  accom¬ 
plished  by  short  cuts — by  the  study  of  the  facts  of  Biblical 
history,  by  the  memorization  of  texts,  by  a  term  of  indoc¬ 
trination  in  a  pastor’s  class,  or  by  other  schemes  for 
imparting  religious  information.  All  of  these  may  be 
good  in  their  place;  but  they  are  only  parts,  and  cannot 
constitute  the  whole.  Religious  education  means  growth 
in  Christian  living  through  guided  experience  therein.  It 
means  the  development  of  Christian  attitudes,  Christian 
purposes,  Christian  standards  of  conduct,  Christian  con¬ 
victions,  a  Christian  way  of  life  in  each  succeeding  stage 
of  the  enlarging  experience  of  childhood,  youth,  and 
maturity.  The  fulfilment  of  the  Church’s  educational 
purpose  requires  nothing  less  than  continuous  fellowship 
in  the  whole  of  its  life  and  work. 

The  converse  of  this  is  that  all  of  the  Church’s  life 
and  work,  as  a  whole  and  in  its  various  parts,  may  prop¬ 
erly  be  tested  and  evaluated  in  the  light  of  its  teaching 
purpose.  Does  this  or  that  item  of  its  program  contribute 
as  it  should  to  the  realization  of  that  aim  ?  Is  the  preach¬ 
ing  from  its  pulpit,  for  example,  a  disconnected  string 
of  oratorical  efforts  upon  passing  topics  of  the  day  or 
such  as  builds  people  up  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of 
God?  Does  its  public  worship  bring  the  congregation 
into  the  presence  of  God,  and  open  their  minds  and  hearts 
to  His  love  and  truth?  Does  it  give  them  a  clearer  vision 
of  what  the  Kingdom  of  God  means  for  our  industrial 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  43 

and  social  and  international  life  and  send  them  out  with  a 
new  determination  to  work  for  it  ?  Do  people  come  to  this 
particular  Church  to  learn,  to  serve,  and  to  grow,  or  to  be 
coddled  in  spirit  and  confirmed  in  their  prejudices?  Is  its 
evangelism  of  the  spasmodic,  crowd-psychology  type,  or 
constant,  sustained,  and  constructive?  Does  it  merely 
“give  to  missions/’  or  is  it  really  interested  in  extending 
its  fellowship,  in  intelligent  and  sympathetic  fashion,  to 
its  brothers  in  foreign  lands?  Does  its  philanthropy 
involve  paternalism  or  fellowship?  Is  its  social  service 
institutional  only  or  personal? 

Or,  to  judge  the  Church  as  a  whole,  is  the  fellowship  ex¬ 
perienced  within  the  Church  a  positive  Christian  influence? 
The  experience  of  unselfish  living  in  a  Christian  atmo¬ 
sphere  as  a  member  of  a  Christian  social  group,  is,  in  the 
last  analysis,  the  one  great  Christian  educator.  To  teach 
brotherhood,  unselfishness,  democracy  in  text-books  and 
classrooms  will  be  of  no  avail  if  the  fellowship  of  the 
Church  is  unbrotherly,  selfish,  undemocratic,  indis¬ 
tinguishable  from  the  life  of  the  world.  For  then  the 
most  powerful  educational  influence  has  not  been  Chris¬ 
tian  at  all. 

These  and  their  like  are  educational  questions.  They 
are  the  sort  that  present  themselves  when  the  life  of  the 
Church  is  tested  by  the  marks  of  an  educational  enter¬ 
prise,  in  the  light  of  its  ultimate  concern  with  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  persons  into  that  fulness  of  life  and  character 
which  is  open  to  them  as  children  of  God  and  learners 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  The  Church’s  Educational  Work  in  the 
Stricter  Sense 

In  a  more  specific  sense,  we  may  understand  by  the 
teaching  work  of  the  Church  those  particular  aspects  of 
its  life  and  work  which  are  more  immediately  and  directly 
educational  in  purpose  and  method. 


44  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

The  various  phases  of  the  life  and  service  of  the  Church 
differ,  naturally,  in  the  immediacy  with  which  they  bear 
upon  the  educational  purpose  that  gives  final  meaning 
and  value  to  the  whole,  and  in  the  relative  directness  with 
which  they  make  conscious  use  of  the  methods  of  teach¬ 
ing.  All  contribute  ultimately  to  the  one  great  educational 
end  toward  which  the  Church  labors — the  regeneration 
and  reconstruction  of  human  society.  Yet,  thinking  in 
terms  of  proximate  purposes  and  immediate  methods,  we 
speak  of  various  activities  of  the  Church  as  evangelistic, 
missionary,  philanthropic,  social,  rather  than  as  phases  of 
its  teaching  work.  What,  then,  in  the  more  immediate 
and  specific  sense,  do  we  conceive  to  be  the  teaching  work 
of  the  Church? 

The  answer,  even  when  the  question  is  thus  restricted, 
is  not  simple,  but  includes  at  least  the  following  elements, 
which,  though  not  separable  “departments”  of  work,  de¬ 
serve  separate  attention  and  are  all  indispensable  parts  of 
the  Church’s  educational  program : 

(a)  The  training  of  children  and  youth  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  way  of  life. 

(b)  The  fostering  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  growth 
of  those  who  have  passed  beyond  the  status  of  childhood ; 
and  the  lifting  of  the  Christian  life  above  the  level  of 
habit  and  custom  to  that  of  intelligence,  through  the 
interpretation  of  Christian  experience  in  terms  of  its 
fundamental  ideas,  motives,  and  beliefs. 

(c)  The  creating  of  an  intelligent  and  Christian  public 
opinion,  through  productive  research  into  the  application 
of  Christianity  to  contemporary  social  problems,  and  the 
dissemination  of  the  results  of  this  research  both  through 
the  Church’s  own  agencies  and  through  other  agencies 
which  are  constantly  shaping  the  attitudes  and  points 
of  view  of  society. 

(d)  The  fitting  of  young  people,  through  institutions 
of  higher  education,  for  service  to  the  Church  and  to 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  45 


society  in  places  of  initiative,  responsibility,  and 
leadership. 

I.  The  Moral  and  Religious  Education  of  Children. 
— The  education  of  children  depends  primarily  upon  their 
fellowship  with  older  folk  in  various  social  groupa,  as 
these  are  concerned  with  the  common  human  interests 
and  occupations.  Education  began  in  the  family  and  the 
tribe  as  a  matter  simply  of  care  for  dependent  and  rela¬ 
tively  helpless,  yet  growing  and  maturing,  offspring.  Its 
methods  were  those  of  direct  personal  association  in  the 
affairs  of  the  group,  involving  imitation  on  the  part  of 
the  younger,  and  simple  communication  on  the  part  of 
the  older.  The  development  of  what  we  call  civilization 
has  been  marked  in  general  by  an  increasing  dependence 
upon  schools  as  the  instruments  of  education.  As  the 
experience  of  the  race  accumulates,  knowledge  grows, 
the  arts  and  sciences  expand,  occupations  diversify  and 
become  specialized,  and  life  as  a  whole  becomes  more 
complex,  its  deeper  meanings  no  longer  upon  the  surface 
of  the  daily  round  of  behavior,  the  education  of  the  child 
becomes  a  task  too  great  for  the  unaided  parents.  It 
requires  more  time  than  they  can  give  and  more  technical 
ability  than  they  possess.  So  schools  are  necessary;  and 
education  becomes,  in  part,  the  business  of  especially 
trained  teachers,  who  bring  children  into  an  especially 
arranged  institutional  environment  and  furnish  them  with 
material  that  has  been  carefully  selected  and  graded  with 
a  view  to  its  educative  value.  In  part,  we  have  said ;  and 
in  part  only.  The  parents  can  never  wholly  abdicate  their 
educational  function ;  and  every  social  group  with  which 
a  child  comes  into  contact  has  something  to  do,  however 
indirectly,  with  his  education.  The  moral  and  religious 
aspects  of  education,  particularly,  while  properly  a  direct 
concern  of  the  school,  will  always  depend  largely  upon 
the  personal  associations  and  contacts  of  the  pupils’  life. 

The  primary  principle,  then,  underlying  the  Chris- 


4 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tian  education  of  children,  which  is  the  most  obvious 
aspect  of  the  teaching  work  of  the  Church,  is  that  of  their 
fellowship  with  older  folk  in  social  groups  which  are 
whole-heartedly  and  genuinely  Christian  in  spirit  and  life. 

Of  these  groups,  by  far  the  most  important  is  the 
family.  Horace  Bushnell  found  in  what  he  called  the 
organic  unity  of  the  family  the  natural  basis  for  his  prin¬ 
ciple  of  Christian  nurture :  “That  the  child  is  to  grow  up 
a  Christian,  and  never  know  himself  as  being  otherwise.” 
Dr.  Edward  Lyttelton,  writing  more  recently  from  the 
standpoint  of  long  experience  as  the  headmaster  of  a 
great  English  public  school,  describes  the  life  of  the  fam¬ 
ily  in  the  home  as  “The  Corner-stone  of  Education,”  and 
records  his  conviction  that  the  great  moral  and  spiritual 
alternative  is  decided  for  most  boys  in  the  course  of  their 
first  eight  years  of  life  as  children  in  the  home  with  their 
parents.  The  conversions  which  take  place  in  the  teens 
or  later,  he  believes,  are  to  be  accounted  for  chiefly  as 
the  coming  to  full  fruit  and  to  clear  consciousness  of  the 
influences  of  these  early  years.  One  can  conceive  no 
better  training- place  for  character  than  the  home  in  which 
dwells  the  Christian  family,  a  little  group  of  old  and 
young,  mature  and  immature,  bound  together  by  ties  of 
mutual  affection,  placing  personal  values  first,  constrained 
by  the  manifold  contacts  of  their  common  life  to  have 
regard  each  for  the  other,  always  giving  and  receiving 
service,  with  opportunities  for  helpfulness,  unselfishness, 
and  even  self-sacrifice,  so  constant  as  to  make  these  a 
matter  of  course,  and  in  all  this  manifesting  the  love,  joy, 
and  peace  which  are  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  In 
such  a  home  the  instruction  of  the  children  in  religion  is 
natural  and  easy,  for  it  is  but  an  explanation  of  the 
motives  which  underlie  the  daily  life  in  which  they  share. 

So  the  first  item  in  the  Christian  education  of  children 
is  the  Christian  education  of  parents.  A  reviewer  of  Dr. 
Lyttelton's  book  complained  that  its  program  for  the 
training  of  children  is  impossible,  in  that  it  demands 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  47 

nothing  less  than  the  conversion  of  the  parents  to  single- 
minded,  whole-hearted  Christian  living.  But  why  should 
we  expect  anything  else?  At  the  foundation  of  the 
Church’s  teaching  work  lies  the  Church’s  effort  to  stim¬ 
ulate,  guide,  and  sustain  a  Christian  family  life  in  the 
homes  of  the  community. 

The  Church  helps  in  the  Christian  education  of  chil¬ 
dren,  further,  by  all  that  it  does  to  determine  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  community  in  which  they  are  brought  up, 
and  the  spirit  of  the  wider  fellowships  into  which  they 
enter  as  they  grow  older.  There  are  no  better  practical 
tests  of  a  community  than  those  suggested  by  the  ques¬ 
tion  :  “Is  it  a  good  place  in  which  to  bring  up  children  ?” 
The  answer  to  that  question  depends  very  largely  upon 
the  degree  to  which  the  churches  of  the  community  are 
serving,  in  leaven-like  fashion,  to  inspire  and  regenerate 
the  whole  of  its  life.  From  this  point  of  view  the  whole 
of  the  Church’s  life  and  work  is  again  seen  to  be  of  the 
utmost  educational  value  and  significance.  That  there 
should  be  no  saloons,  brothels,  or  gambling-halls ;  that 
motion-picture  shows  should  be  decent  and  dance-halls 
respectable ;  that  housing  should  be  adequate  and  sanita¬ 
tion  good;  that  workmen  should  receive  just  wages; 
that  there  should  be  a  weekly  day  of  rest  and  worship  for 
all ;  that  government  should  be  honest  and  business  be 
carried  on  in  equity;  that  differing  racial  groups  should 
receive  fair  and  friendly  treatment;  that  there  should  be 
equal  opportunity  for  all  to  develop  their  personalities  to 
the  full — all  these  are  matters  that  are  properly  objects  of 
the  Church’s  concern  and  that  indirectly,  yet  vitally,  affect 
the  moral  and  spiritual  development  of  every  child. 

The  Church  educates  children,  again,  by  associating 
them  with  one  another  and  with  their  parents  and  other 
older  folk  in  its  own  fellowship  and  service.  The  Church 
is  a  larger  family — the  family  of  God  the  Father.  As 
such,  it  is  not  an  organization  of  grown-ups  merely  or 
of  saints  made  perfect.  “The  promise,”  according  to  a 


48  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

text  of  Scripture  which  Horace  Bushnell  loved  to  quote, 
“is  to  you  and  to  your  children.”  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance,  educationally,  that  children  be  afforded  a 
place  in  the  Church’s  fellowship  comparable  to  the  place 
that  they  occupy  in  the  family  group.  They  should  be 
made  to  feel  that  they  are  the  Church’s  children,  and 
that  it  is  their  Church.  They  should  take  part  in  its 
services  of  worship,  and  should  share,  in  the  measure  of 
their  understanding  and  ability,  in  its  active  enterprises 
of  good-will.  Thus  they  will  be  trained,  by  fellowship 
with  their  elders,  in  the  habits  and  attitudes  which  are 
characteristically  Christian ;  they  will  grow  up  feeling 
themselves  within  the  Church  rather  than  outside  of  it  ,* 
they  will  find  in  it  the  natural  home  of  their  spirit  and  in 
due  time  they  will  desire  to  take  upon  themselves  the  vows 
of  discipleship  and  to  assume  the  full  responsibilities 
which  are  laid  upon  its  members. 

Let  it  not  be  concluded,  from  this  emphasis  upon  fel¬ 
lowship  as  primary  and  fundamental,  that  instruction  has 
no  place,  and  that  the  education  of  children  in  religion  is 
a  matter  of  simple  contagion  or  training  in  habit  and 
attitude  alone.  Instruction  is  a  means  whereby  experi¬ 
ences  are  shared  and  interpreted,  and  the  more  experi¬ 
enced  are  able  to  give  help  to  the  less  experienced,  and  to 
transmit  to  them  the  accumulated  heritage  of  the  race’s 
wisdom.  As  in  education  generally,  so  also  in  moral  and 
religious  education,  instruction  is  indispensable.  The  point 
that  needs  emphasis  is  that  instruction  which  is  rooted 
and  grounded  in  fellowship  is  vital  and  meaningful ,  while 
instruction  without  fellowship  lacks  motive  and  content. 
Instruction  in  morals  and  religion  means  most  when  it 
appears  as  communication  motived  by  the  exigencies, 
opportunities,  and  enterprises  of  fellowship  in  the  life  of 
the  home,  the  community,  and  the  Church.  The  instruc¬ 
tion  then  serves  to  explain  the  motives  which  are  actually 
at  work  in  the  life  the  child  is  sharing,  and  to  impart 
information  needed  in  its  enterprises. 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  49 

Yet,  just  as  the  community  can  no  longer  leave  the 
education  of  children  wholly  to  their  association  with 
their  parents  in  the  affairs  of  everyday  life,  the  Church 
cannot  depend  wholly,  for  the  moral  and  religious  educa¬ 
tion  of  children,  upon  the  degree  of  training  and  instruc¬ 
tion  which  is  incidental  to  their  fellowship  with  older  folk 
in  such  ways  as  we  have  mentioned.  The  Church,  like 
the  community,  must  maintain  a  school.  And  the  Church 
school  must  take  as  its  work  that  part  of  the  education  of 
children  which  the  public  school  can  not  so  well  accom¬ 
plish,  their  education  in  morals  and  religion. 

The  reasons  why  the  Church  must  maintain  a  school 
are  similar  to  the  reasons  for  the  establishment  and 
growth  of  schools  generally.  There  is  much  to  learn,  in 
religion  as  in  other  things,  and  ever  more  as  experience 
widens  and  deepens.  There  is  the  same  necessity  for 
gradation  of  materials  as  in  education  generally,  that 
they  may  be  adapted  to  the  pupil’s  needs  and  abilities,  and 
may  lead  him  on,  in  sound  progression  of  development, 
to  the  ordered  knowledge  of  human  life  and  destiny,  the 
right  affections  and  motives,  and  the  standards  of  conduct, 
which  are  religion’s  goal.  This  gradation  implies  the 
establishment  of  special  environments  controlled  by  edu¬ 
cative  purposes,  and  the  service  of  teachers  who  under¬ 
stand  children  and  know  how  to  guide  their  development. 
So  education  in  religion,  too,  passes  in  part — but  in  part 
only — beyond  the  range  of  the  average  parent’s  time  and 
ability;  and  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  main¬ 
tain  schools  for  the  teaching  of  religion  which  are  as 
competent  in  their  own  field  as  we  expect  the  public 
schools  to  be  in  the  fields  which  belong  to  them. 

The  need  for  such  schools  has  been  met  in  America  for 
the  last  hundred  years,  in  so  far  as  it  has  been  met  at  all, 
by  the  Sunday  Schools.  We  have  now  come  to  realize, 
and  none  of  us  more  clearly  than  the  Sunday  School 
leaders  themselves,  that  the  work  of  the  Sunday  School 
must  be  greatly  widened  and  the  school  itself  transformed 


So  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

if  it  is  to  be  an  adequate  school  of  the  Church  under  the 
conditions  of  the  twentieth  century.  Fortunately,  that 
is  just  what  has  been  taking  place  for  the  past  dozen  years 
or  more.  We  are  now  in  the  midst  of  a  great  movement 
which  is  gradually  transforming  the  Sunday  Schools  and 
also  extending  their  influence  and  service  into  week-day 
hours.  There  is  good  reason  to  hope  that  the  Church 
may  now  make  of  them  effective  instruments  of  moral 
and  religious  education. 

2.  Fostering  Adult  Growth  in  Christian  Experience. — 
The  mind  of  man,  happily,  is  not  as  limited  in  capacity 
for  growth  as  his  body.  Full  physical  stature  is  generally 
reached  by  the  end  of  the  teens;  the  mind  may  keep  on 
growing  and  expanding  as  long  as  the  passing  years  bring 
increase  of  experience. 

This  is  not  to  deny  that  individuals  differ  in  native  ca¬ 
pacity  and  that  their  endowments  set  certain  limits  within 
which  the  development  of  each  will  move.  There  is  a 
large  measure  of  truth,  moreover,  in  William  James’ 
assertion  that  character  is  set  in  most  of  us  before  thirty, 
and  that  we  have  at  that  age  already  acquired  most  of 
the  new  ideas  that  we  shall  ever  possess.  Yet  it  was 
this  same  William  James  who  called  the  attention  of 
psychologists  to  the  higher  levels  of  latent  energy  which 
remain  untapped  by  most  men  and  are  reached  by  others 
but  rarely;  and  he  was  himself  an  outstanding  example 
of  a  mind  that  never  ceased  growing  and  never  lost  its 
eagerness  to  receive  and  power  to  appraise  new  experi¬ 
ences  and  ideas.  A  year  or  more  before  his  death  he 
reported  that  he  found  faith  in  immortality  growing 
more  dear  to  him  because  he  felt  that  he  was  “just  getting 
fit  to  live.” 

So  the  educational  responsibility  of  the  Church  does 
not  end  with  the  passing  of  childhood  and  the  coming  of 
maturity.  As  long  as  it  remains  possible  for  an  indi¬ 
vidual  to  go  further  in  that  integrated  growth  of  intel- 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  51 

ligence,  feeling,  and  will  which  constitutes  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  character,  the  Church  must  seek  to  stimulate  and 
guide  that  growth.  Through  special  classes  for  adults, 
through  preaching  and  worship,  through  the  various  con¬ 
tacts  of  the  pastoral  relation,  and  through  the  forms  of 
active  service  in  which  it  enlists  them,  the  Church  un¬ 
dertakes  the  further  training  of  these  folk,  their  upbuild¬ 
ing  in  character,  and  the  cultivation  of  their  latent  moral 
and  spiritual  powers.  That  Church  is  a  failure  which 
is  simply  an  association  of  the  contented,  who  gather 
at  stated  times  for  the  mere  repetition  in  sermon,  ritual, 
or  experience-meeting  of  matters  long  since  familiar. 
The  ideas  of  discovery,  of  learning,  of  growth  in  knowl¬ 
edge  and  power  are  fundamental  in  the  Christian  con¬ 
ception  of  life.  When  a  Church’s  members  cease  to  learn 
and  to  grow,  it  is  in  danger  of  losing  the  Holy  Spirit, 
who  came  to  teach  us  all  things. 

In  danger  of  losing  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  repeat.  For 
what  we  have  referred  to,  on  the  human  side,  as  the 
growth  and  development  of  character,  is  to  be  described, 
on  the  divine  side,  as  the  work  of  the  regenerating,  en¬ 
lightening,  and  sanctifying  Spirit  of  God.  The  correlate 
of  man’s  discovery  is  God’s  revelation;  the  correlate  of 
learning,  God’s  teaching;  the  correlate  of  human  growth, 
God’s  nurturing  care.  The  work  of  the  Spirit  in  a  human 
life  is  not  an  episode  merely,  resulting  in  a  finished, 
static  product;  it  is  rather  a  constant  dynamic,  inspiring, 
strengthening,  and  teaching  throughout  the  whole  of  life. 
Character  is  not  bestowed  all  at  once,  as  a  possession 
thereafter  to  be  retained  intact  and  just  kept  polished; 
God  makes  it  possible,  rather,  for  His  children  to  gain 
character  increasingly  through  service  in  continued  fel¬ 
lowship  with  one  another  and  Him.  This  fellowship,  this 
grace,  the  Church  undertakes  to  mediate  and  foster. 

Such  developing  Christian  character  is  not  a  matter  of 
habit  and  custom  merely.  It  is  motivated  by  intelligible 
convictions  concerning  God,  man,  and  the  universe.  The 


52  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


growth  of  a  Christian  is  thus  in  part  intellectual,  and  the 
Christian  Church  has  always  rightly  considered  instruction 
in  doctrine  to  be  a  vital  and  fundamental  part  of  its 
teaching  work. 

There  have  been  many  times,  indeed,  when  a  wrong 
emphasis  has  been  laid  upon  this  aspect  of  the  Church’s 
teaching,  times  when  moral  and  religious  education  has 
been  conceived  in  narrow  intellectualistic  terms  as  little 
more  than  instruction  in  the  Bible,  creeds,  or  ritual 
forms,  when  assent  to  some  particular  formulation  of 
doctrine  was  made  a  prior  condition  of  admission  to 
fellowship  and  led  to  the  neglect  of  the  weightier  matters 
of  love,  justice,  and  mercy.  It  would  be  an  equally  great 
mistake,  however,  to  draw  such  opposite  conclusions  as 
that  doctrine  is  profitless ;  that  religion  does  not  lend  itself 
to  intellectual  formulation ;  that  faith  is  independent  of 
reason;  that  it  does  not  really  matter  what  one  believes, 
provided  he  lives  a  good  life. 

The  error  of  intellectualism  in  religion  lies  not  so  much 
in  over-concern  with  doctrine  as  in  failure  to  grasp  and 
maintain  the  true  relation  of  doctrine  to  life  and  experi¬ 
ence.  Jesus  put  it  rightly:  “If  any  man  will  do  His  will, 
he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God.” 
The  natural  order,  psychologically  and  pedagogically,  is 
not  that  true  belief  comes  first  and  right  living  is  then 
simply  an  application  or  expression  of  that  belief.  The 
fact  is  rather  that  we  first  live  and  act,  then  understand. 
Christian  doctrine  is  an  interpretation  of  Christian  ex¬ 
perience.  Insight  and  conviction  are  more  the  fruit 
than  the  pre-condition  of  right  life  and  action.  This 
is  the  truth  involved  in  Anselm’s  principle  that  faith 
is  prior  to  knowledge.  Religious  education  begins  not 
with  indoctrination  but  with  the  experience  of  fellowship 
in  Christian  purposes  and  activities.  Doctrines  follow 
as  an  explanation  of  life’s  purposes  and  motives  and 
an  interpretation  of  its  realities  and  values. 

The  Church  would  be  untrue  to  its  teaching  mission, 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  53 

however,  were  it  to  fail  to  interpret  the  experience  it 
mediates.  If  the  Christian  life  he  left  dependent  upon 
habit ,  custom ,  and  the  contagion  of  fellowship  merely , 
it  will  not  only  fail  to  realize  the  richer  and  more  mean¬ 
ingful  Christian  experience  which  is  open  to  an  intelligent 
faith,  hut  it  is  left  in  jeopardy  of  passing  circumstance. 
It  can  be  placed  upon  a  sound  and  permanent  basis  only 
when  the  individual  intelligently  grasps  its  fundamental 
ideas  and  principles.  Only  a  reasonable  faith  can  in 
the  long  run  be  depended  upon  to  endure,  amid  the 
changing  conditions  and  increasing  complexities  of  life. 
Even  Roman  Catholicism,  with  its  large  degree  of  re¬ 
liance  upon  habit,  fellowship,  and  sacramental  grace,  and 
with  its  appeal  to  a  type  of  faith  which  seems  to  Protes¬ 
tants  to  be  relatively  unintelligent,  takes  the  utmost  pains 
to  inculcate  the  dogmas  which  form  the  intellectual  sub¬ 
stratum  of  its  system  of  life  and  belief,  and  to  interpret 
the  experience  of  its  devotees  in  terms  of  these  dogmas. 
Protestantism,  with  its  freedom  of  individual  judgment, 
needs  even  more  to  care  for  the  intellectual  aspects  of 
moral  and  religious  education,  that  its  followers  may  be 
fit  to  stand  on  their  own  feet  before  God  and  man,  know¬ 
ing  what  they  believe  and  why. 

3.  Creating  Christian  Public  Opinion. — The  task  of 
bringing  individuals  into  conscious  and  intelligent  Chris¬ 
tian  discipleship,  of  developing  Christian  personalities,  is 
always  the  basic  part  of  the  Church’s  teaching  work. 
But  the  development  of  a  Christian  personality  takes 
place  always  in  a  social  environment.  Persons  exist  and 
have  meaning  only  in  social  relationships.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  person  dwelling  in  a  social  vacuum.  To 
grow  morally  and  spiritually  means  to  enter  into  fuller 
fellowship  with  others,  and  to  realize  increasingly  in  one’s 
relations  with  them  the  divine  ideal  revealed  to  us  by 
Jesus  Christ.  There  is  no  fellowship  with  God  the  Father 
that  does  not  in  itself  involve  living  with  His  children  in 


54  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

the  spirit  of  love,  which  is  of  the  very  nature  of  God. 
“He  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God.” 

This  means  that  it  is  a  vital  and  direct  concern  of  the 
Church  that  all  the  social  conditions  and  arrangements 
in  which  men  live  should  be  such  as  to  develop  the  spirit 
of  love  and  goodwill,  and  so  minister  to  moral  and  spiritual 
growth.  All  the  relations  of  men  to  each  other  in  indus¬ 
try  and  business ;  all  the  contacts  between  the  races ;  all 
civic  and  political  affairs ;  all  relations  between  nations  as 
organized  groups — all  these,  as  well  as  the  life  of  the  home 
and  one’s  circle  of  friends,  are,  in  the  Christian’s  faith, 
to  be  organized  according  to  the  mind  of  Christ.  For 
all  this  social  environment  is  having  a  constant  effect,  for 
good  or  ill,  upon  the  very  development  of  personality 
itself.  That  this  is  so  has  long  been  recognized  in  the 
Church’s  foreign  missionary  work,  where  we  long  ago 
discovered  that  if  we  are  to  succeed  in  building  Christian 
character  we  must  break  down  prevalent  unchristian  social 
practices,  such  as  polygamy  or  the  opium  traffic,  and  must 
develop  an  economic  basis  for  the  support  of  Christian 
standards  of  living.  It  must  be  equally  recognized  in  all 
the  teaching  work  of  the  Church  at  home  that  wholesome 
social  conditions  minister  to  character,  and  that  unwhole¬ 
some  conditions  are  an  inevitable  handicap.  The  fact 
is  that  the  social  environment  is  itself  a  powerful,  though 
indirect,  educator,  and  is  all  the  while  re-enforcing  or 
thwarting  the  efforts  which  the  Church  is  making  to  train 
Christian  personality. 

All  this  inherited  social  structure,  our  economic  and 
industrial  and  political  arrangements,  are  determined  and 
supported  by  that  complex  thing  which  we  call  public 
opinion — the  general  point  of  view  and  attitude  of  the 
social  group  as  a  whole.  If,  then,  we  are  to  have  a  Chris¬ 
tian  social  life  we  must  have  a  Christian  public  opinion. 
To  secure  this  is  probably  the  most  difficult  phase  of  the 
Church’s  teaching  work  in  the  present  day. 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  55 

Involved  in  this  task  is  the  necessity  of  making  a 
concerted  impact  on  the  public  mind.  For  public  opinion 
is  not  changed  simply  by  winning  individuals  separately 
one  by  one  to  a  new  point  of  view.  Public  opinion  is,  in 
considerable  degree,  an  organic  thing — a  group  product 
which  would  not  exist  except  for  the  interrelations  of  in¬ 
dividuals  in  their  group  life.  It  is  something  more  than 
the  mere  sum  of  individual  purposes  and  attitudes.  By 
their  interplay  types  of  feeling  and  thought  are  developed 
which  the  individual  alone  would  never  create. 

To  influence  public  opinion,  therefore,  there  must  be 
a  great  movement  of  thought  and  feeling  which  can  affect 
the  mass  of  the  people  at  the  same  time,  and  so  be  strong 
enough  to  sweep  away  the  inertia  of  inherited  arrange¬ 
ments,  and  set  the  community  to  rebuilding  along  better 
lines. 

In  order  to  achieve  such  a  concerted  impact,  it  becomes 
necessary  for  the  Church  to  lay  hold  for  Christianity  of 
great  popular  agencies  like  the  daily  press  through  which 
public  opinion  is  constantly  being  molded  and  sustained. 
The  need  for  this  is  clearer  still  when  one  realizes  that 
there  are  millions  of  men  who  are  not  now  coming,  and 
so  far  as  we  can  see  are  not  likely  to  come,  under  the 
immediate  influence  of  the  Church’s  regular  agencies  for 
teaching  the  individual — the  Sunday  School,  the  week¬ 
day  school,  the  pulpit,  the  Christian  college,  or  other  media 
of  direct  religious  instruction.  If  we  are  to  reach  them 
at  all,  we  must  do  so  indirectly  through  such  an  instrument 
as  the  daily  press,  which,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  is 
influencing  all  the  people  all  the  time. 

And  to  apply  Christianity  to  social  problems  of  the 
present  day  demands,  as  an  essential  prerequisite,  patient 
and  skillful  research.  For  although  the  Christian  princi¬ 
ples  themselves  are  clear  and  simple,  the  application  of 
them  to  many  of  the  social  and  international  questions  of 
our  time  is  extraordinarily  difficult.  The  average  Chris¬ 
tian  simply  does  not  know  enough  about  the  economic 


56  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

structure  of  society  or  about  the  relations  of  nations  to 
each  other  in  the  modern  world  to  be  able  to  decide,  in 
many  concrete  cases  of  industrial  controversy  or  national 
policy,  what  will  work  most  effectively  toward  the  Chris¬ 
tian  goal.  The  spirit  of  goodwill,  though  absolutely  basic 
and  fundamental,  is  by  itself  not  sufficient.  There  must 
be  also  a  clear  understanding  of  how  that  goodwill  can 
be  so  applied  practically  as  to  secure  the  ends  which  Chris¬ 
tians  seek. 

To  provide  agencies  of  study  and  research,  which  will 
examine  with  thoroughness  and  skill  the  difficult  questions 
of  the  application  of  Christianity  to  all  phases  of  our  con¬ 
temporary  social  life,  in  order  that  there  may  be  a  grow¬ 
ing  understanding  of  what  Christianity  involves  for  human 
living  together,  is  an  indispensable,  and  too  much  neg¬ 
lected,  part  of  the  teaching  program  fo  the  Church. 

4.  Training  for  Leadership. — The  maintenance  of  in¬ 
stitutions  of  higher  education,  for  the  sake  of  training 
men  and  women  for  places  of  leadership  in  service  to 
the  Church  and  society,  is  a  part  of  the  Church’s  teaching 
responsibility  without  which  none  of  its  other  work  can 
be  permanently  maintained.  Unless  there  are  those  who 
are  qualified  to  fill  places  of  initiative  and  guidance,  we 
cannot  hope  for  any  large  achievement.  What  the  Church 
is  to  be  will  depend  chiefly  on  its  leadership.  Both  its 
own  self -perpetuation  and  its  service  to  the  community 
call  not  simply  for  the  religious  education  of  the  children 
and  the  members  of  the  Church  but  also  for  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  training  required  by  those  who  are  to  carry 
on  the  ministry  of  teaching  the  rank  and  file. 

That  the  Church  was  interested  in  higher  education  in 
America  long  before  the  State  is  a  clear  fact  of  history. 
The  colleges  arose  chiefly  from  the  concern  of  the  Church 
for  an  educated  ministry.  With  the  development,  how¬ 
ever,  of  the  nation  along  industrial  and  commercial 
lines,  and  with  the  multiplying  realms  of  professional 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  57 

service,  the  college  gradually  departed  from  this  early 
tradition.  When  the  State  itself  assumed  a  responsibility 
for  higher  education,  it  frankly  omitted  religion  from  the 
curriculum — as  it  was  omitted  from  the  public  school. 
The  most  that  the  State  university  has  felt  itself  called 
upon  to  do,  under  the  principle  of  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State,  has  been  to  give  courses  in  the  Bible 
as  literature  and  in  religious  developments  as  history — 
not  courses  definitely  designed  to  teach  religion  itself. 

The  Church  has  met  the  situation  in  some  measure 
through  voluntary  agencies  like  the  Young  Men’s  and 
Young  Women’s  Christian  Associations,  and  more  re¬ 
cently  by  “university  pastors”  and  occasional  foundations 
for  definite  instruction  in  religion,  cooperating  with  the 
university,  but  it  is  admitted  without  argument  that  the 
university  today  is  contributing  to  our  religious  life 
only  a  meager  body  of  leadership. 

Yet  such  surveys  as  have  been  made  indicate  that 
today  more  students  of  the  leading  denominations  go 
to  State  institutions  than  to  church  colleges.  A  Church 
would  be  fatally  weak  in  its  teaching  program  if  it  left 
these  students  without  positive  religious  teaching  just 
at  the  very  period  when  their  new  knowledge  of  science 
is  sharply  testing  their  old  religious  conceptions.  Now, 
if  ever,  they  need  educational  influences  which  will  help 
them  to  interpret  the  world  of  their  enlarging  knowledge 
in  religious  terms.  Through  the  work  of  the  local  Church 
in  the  university  town,  through  voluntary  courses  of  study 
outside  the  curriculum,  through  supplementary  instruc¬ 
tion  in  cooperating  schools  of  religion  or  Church  founda¬ 
tions,  or  through  other  means,  the  Church  must  find  the 
way  of  giving  advanced  teaching  in  the  Christian  religion 
to  this  great  body  of  students  who  are  to  occupy  places 
of  leadership  in  the  world’s  life. 

In  the  institutions  under  the  Church’s  own  control 
there  has  been  the  opportunity,  of  course,  for  the  Church 
to  direct  its  attention  definitely  to  a  type  of  training  which 


58  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

would  both  raise  up  well-equipped  leaders  for  the  min¬ 
istry,  religious  education,  and  missionary  service,  and 
which  would  also  send  out  all  its  graduates  with  a  re¬ 
ligious  training  that  would  fit  them,  as  laymen,  to  render 
intelligent  service  to  the  Kingdom  of  God.  That  this  is 
the  distinctive  function  of  the  so-called  “denominational 
college,,  is  clear.  If  it  has  no  special  mission  for  re¬ 
ligious  teaching  different  from  that  of  the  State-con- 
trolled  institution,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  it  should  com 
tinue  to  exist.  In  many  institutions  this  function  has 
been  creditably  fulfilled  and  from  them  have  come  the 
great  majority  of  the  Church’s  leaders.  This  central 
purpose  of  the  Christian  college,  however,  is  not  always 
so  apparent.  It  frequently  does  not  succeed  much  better 
than  the  tax-supported  institutions  in  making  religion  a 
great  and  integral  part  of  the  educational  program.  The 
general  atmosphere  may  be  favorable  to  religion  but  there 
is  crying  need  for  more  systematic  training  for  Christian 
leadership.  The  curriculum  often  differs  very  little  from 
that  of  the  liberal  arts  college  in  the  State  university,  the 
teaching  of  religion  being  given  a  relatively  subordinate 
place;  courses  in  Bible,  in  Church  history,  in  Christian 
ethics,  in  religious  education,  in  missions,  being  too  few 
in  number  and  too  poorly  provided  for.  More  conscious 
effort  is  also  necessary  to  provide  an  interpretation  of 
the  curriculum  as  a  whole — its  science,  philosophy,  and 
literature — which  will  develop  a  Christian  conception  of 
the  world  and  of  human  destiny. 

The  work  of  the  theological  seminary,  as  the  profes¬ 
sional  training  school  where  the  Church’s  leaders  receive 
their  specialized  preparation  for  life  service,  is  obviously 
the  crown  of  the  Church’s  teaching.  That  this  institu¬ 
tion  should  really  train  men  for  the  practical  carrying 
on  of  the  Church’s  mission  to  our  community  life,  and 
should  not  be  satisfied  simply  to  give  formal  academic 
instruction  in  certain  traditional  departments  of  knowl¬ 
edge,  is  of  crucial  importance.  Unless  there  come  from 


EDUCATIONAL  FUNCTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  59 


the  seminaries  an  adequate  body  of  men  fully  qualified 
to  assume  places  of  successful  leadership  we  cannot  hope 
that  any  part  of  the  Church’s  educational  responsibility 
will  be  properly  discharged.  The  whole  program  of  the 
Church  stands  or  falls  with  its  work  in  the  theological 
seminary. 

The  teaching  work  of  the  Church  as  we  have  thus 
analyzed  it — the  Christian  nurture  of  children  and  youth, 
the  fostering  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  growth  of  those 
who  have  passed  beyond  childhood,  the  interpretation  in 
intellectual  terms  of  our  common  Christian  experience, 
the  building  up  of  a  Christian  public  opinion  concerning 
our  social  organization,  and  the  preparation  of  those  who 
are  to  serve  as  the  needed  leaders  in  all  the  Church’s 
work — is  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  perpetuation 
and  enrichment  of  the  Church’s  own  life.  It  is  more.  It 
is  an  essential  part,  the  essential  part,  of  the  Church’s 
service  to  the  world. 


PART  II 


HOW  THE  CHURCH  SHOULD  TEACH 


CHAPTER  III 


TEACHING  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO 

THE  CHILD 

The  failure  to  plan  our  teaching  with  constant  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  present  needs  of  the  person  taught  has  been 
one  of  the  most  fatal  weaknesses  in  the  Church’s  educa¬ 
tional  work.  Just  what  the  development  of  the  individual 
at  a  given  period  requires  in  the  way  of  religious  train¬ 
ing,  just  what  purposes  we  desire  to  achieve  at  each 
period,  just  what  will  be  needed  then  to  secure  his  ad¬ 
vance  to  the  next  stage  and  just  how  this  is  to  be  pro¬ 
vided — these  questions  the  Church  at  large  has  not  seri¬ 
ously  enough  considered.  We  have  been  thinking  so 
much  of  the  subject  matter  that  we  have  not  thought  of 
the  person  for  whose  sake  all  our  teaching  is  carried  on. 

We  are  discovering  now  that  the  first  requisite  for 
teaching  is  to  understand  that  life  means  growth,  de¬ 
velopment,  adaptation,  and  that  we  must,  accordingly, 
keep  in  constant  and  vital  contact  with  the  actual  facts 
of  child  experience.  The  Church  cannot  ignore  the  time 
element  and  expect  immediately  results  not  yet  attain¬ 
able.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  lag  behind  the 
child’s  enlarging  life  and  leave  him  without  the  assist¬ 
ance  needed  as  a  new  stage  comes.  It  must  patiently 
interpret  and  reinterpret  Christian  faith  and  Christian 
standards  of  conduct  in  terms  of  present  need.  It  must 
provide  the  individual  with  the  means  for  a  Christian 
interpretation  of  his  changing  experience,  with  the  spirit¬ 
ual  resources  for  living  now  in  accordance  with  the 
Christian  ideals,  with  incentives  for  making  a  Christian 
response  to  new  situations  as  they  come. 

63 


64  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


This  fundamental  principle  of  making  the  child,  rather 
than  the  Biblical  material,  the  center  of  interest  and 
building  up  the  program  of  religious  education  on  the 
basis  of  his  developing  activities  and  needs,  has  all  too 
long  been  ignored.  The  continuing  use  of  a  Uniform 
Sunday  School  Lesson  System,  providing  the  same  sub¬ 
ject  matter  for  children,  youth,  and  adults,  is  only  one  of 
many  illustrations  of  the  need  for  serious  study  at  this 
point. 

An  understanding  of  the  development  of  the  pupil’s 
distinctive  experiences,  interests,  and  capacities  is  of 
such  central  importance  in  any  effective  teaching  and  is 
still  so  little  appreciated  in  many  quarters  in  the  Church 
that  we  shall  undertake  to  sketch  briefly  the  progress  of 
the  individual’s  life  from  childhood  to  maturity,  dis¬ 
covering  the  determining  factors  and  the  significant  fea¬ 
tures  at  each  new  stage  of  his  continuous  experience. 
Upon  the  basis  of  these  we  may  undertake  to  analyze  the 
problem  for  the  teacher  at  this  period,  to  define  more 
specifically  the  aim  in  teaching ;  and,  in  accordance  with 
the  aim  which  we  set  for  ourselves  at  successive  stages, 
to  suggest  the  content  and  method  which  are  essential  for 
its  realization. 

I.  Infancy  and  Upward 

(a)  The  First  Three  Years;  Pre-school  Period. — A 
moment’s  reflection  will  convince  one  of  the  immense 
significance  of  early  infancy.  During  these  first  years  are 
acquired  the  most  essential  kinds  of  skill.  One  learns  to 
walk  and  to  talk  and  to  accommodate  himself  to  a  mode 
of  life  and  conduct.  The  amount  of  muscular  coordina¬ 
tion  and  control  involved  in  these  accomplishments  and 
the  number  of  adjustments  required  in  the  nerve  centers 
is  simply  enormous.  Less  obvious,  but  not  less  important 
and  fundamental,  are  the  attitudes  and  habits  which  are 
being  formed  at  this  time.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  65 

the  whole  “set”  of  character  or  disposition  may  be  very 
largely  determined  by  the  treatment  and  teaching  of  these 
years. 

The  Church,  however,  does  not  come  into  direct  con¬ 
tact  with  lives  at  this  stage.  What  it  does  for  these  ages 
must  be  done  largely  through  the  home  itself,  through  the 
parents  and  older  brothers  and  sisters,  by  making  its  in¬ 
fluence  felt  indirectly  through  loftier  ideals  for  the  family 
and  through  more  wholesome  home  surroundings.  What, 
precisely,  should  the  Church  seek  to  accomplish  for  little 
children  during  these  earliest  years?  To  develop  a  family 
atmosphere  which  will  lead  them  to  think  of  God  as  really 
and  constantly  present  in  their  home  surroundings ;  to 
assume  toward  Him  a  natural  and  responsive  attitude, 
and  toward  others  an  attitude  consistent  with  this  thought 
of  God. 

How  shall  we  make  God  real  to  little  children?  Jesus 
taught  men  to  call  God  “Father,”  and  this  is  at  once  the 
name  and  the  relationship  most  appropriate  for  childhood 
and  most  fitting  for  home  experience.  But  if  the  word 
“Father”  is  to  have  meaning,  as  applied  to  God,  it  must 
first  have  a  similar — even  if  a  lesser — meaning,  as  applied 
to  an  earthly  parent.  If  the  little  child  is  to  gain  any 
conception  of  God  as  a  real  Being,  possessing  attributes 
such  as  the  Christian  associates  with  the  name  of  God, 
he  must  first  experience  in  his  own  parents  and  in  the 
atmosphere  of  his  own  home  such  qualities  as  justice, 
tenderness,  strength,  fidelity,  and  High  purpose.  This,  of 
course,  involves  on  the  part  of  the  parents  a  vital  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God.  The  home  atmosphere  must  be  per¬ 
vaded  by  the  divine  Presence ;  all  the  familiar  and  inti¬ 
mate  home  relationships  must  be  tender;  the  attitudes  of 
good-will  and  cooperation,  habitual,  not  only  toward  other 
members  of  the  household  but  towards  domestic  helpers, 
neighbors,  tradesmen,  and  all  others  with  whom  the  fam- 
ily  comes  in  contact. 


66  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


The  means  by  which  personal  communion  with  God  is 
recognized  and  maintained  will  be  as  much  a  part  of  the 
family  program  as  are  those  acts  which  have  as  their 
purpose  the  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  with  people. 
Whether  a  time  is  regularly  set  apart  for  family  worship, 
or  the  hour  at  rising  or  at  bedtime  is  utilized  for  prayer 
and  story,  or  other  methods  followed,  Christian  parents 
will  find  some  way  of  revealing  to  their  children  their 
own  sense  of  dependence  upon  God,  their  need  of  guid¬ 
ance  by  His  Spirit,  and  their  purpose  to  do  His  will. 

The  control  which  God  is  to  exercise  over  the  lives  of 
men  should  also  be  exemplified  by  the  kind  of  control 
which  parents  exercise  over  their  children.  If  a  little 
child  is  to  think  of  God  as  a  God  of  justice  he  must  learn 
what  justice  is  through  his  experience  of  home  discipline. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  such  laws  as  are  laid  down 
should  be  inflexible  and  their  penalties  inevitable — as  is 
the  case  with  the  so-called  laws  of  nature.  But  for  this 
very  reason  they  must  be  clearly  laws  which  apply  equally 
to  all,  and  are  obviously  for  the  good  of  all ;  not  arbitrary, 
tyrannical,  nor  capricious.  Much  has  been  said  and  writ¬ 
ten  of  the  physiological  importance  of  early  training  in 
habits  of  eating,  sleeping,  playing,  and  exercise.  It  is  of 
no  less  significance  for  morals  and  for  religion  that  regu¬ 
larity  in  the  daily  routine  of  living  should  be  insisted 
upon,  and  it  can  be  developed  in  the  child  only  as  it  is  a 
part  of  the  family  regimen. 

It  appears ,  then,  that  the  task  of  the  Church,  so  far 
as  these  littlest  people  are  concerned,  consists  in  training 
parents  to  exemplify  toward  their  children  the  traits  of  a 
divine  parenthood,  to  maintain  in  the  home  an  atmosphere 
that  is  thoroughly  Christian  and  a  spirit  that  is  mutually 
helpful  and  cooperative.  It  is  impossible  to  overempha¬ 
size  the  importance  of  this  task.  In  a  very  real  sense 
it  is  fundamental  to  all  subsequent  Christian  teaching. 
Indeed,  the  whole  message  of  Christianity  may  be 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  67 

summed  up  in  terms  of  home  experience,  and  its  mis¬ 
sionary  purpose  may  be  said  to  contemplate  simply  the 
indefinite  extension  of  the  home  circle  to  include  all  man¬ 
kind  and  the  assumption  toward  all  men  of  those  atti¬ 
tudes  which  are  first  learned  amid  home  relationships. 
God  as  our  Father,  the  whole  world  as  his  family,  all  men 
our  brothers — such  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  Unless, 
however,  one  has  first  an  experience  of  such  attitudes  and 
relationships  in  his  own  home  life,  he  will  not  readily 
comprehend  the  wider  implications  of  the  Christian  mes¬ 
sage. 

Here  lies  a  wide  field  of  service,  as  yet  scarcely  touched 
by  the  Church.  The  Church  must  come  to  realize  that 
most  young  people  who  become  parents  today  have  had 
scarcely  any  previous  instruction  as  to  the  meaning  of 
parenthood  and  have  little  or  no  realization  of  the  tre¬ 
mendous  responsibilities  involved  in  the  bearing  and 
rearing  of  children.  It  is  difficult  to  provide  any  adequate 
preparation  for  these  duties  in  advance.  But  from  the 
time  when  young  parents  are  first  confronted  by  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  home-making,  there  ought  to  be  no  cessation  in 
the  Church’s  program  of  home  education  in  religion. 
This  program  should  include  direct  instruction  to  the 
parents  themselves  as  to  how  they  may  deepen  their  own 
religious  life.  There  should  be  instruction  regarding 
Christian  ideals  for  the  family,  the  interpretation  of  home 
life  and  experience,  the  ways  of  creating  and  deepening 
the  religious  atmosphere  of  the  home,  the  conduct  of 
home  worship,  the  meeting  of  problems  of  discipline. 
Scripture  selections  for  personal  reading  are  needed,  pray¬ 
ers  for  personal  and  family  use,  stories  and  prayers  for 
children’s  use,  suggestions  as  to  the  aims  and  opportuni¬ 
ties  for  home  instruction  in  religion.  At  present,  com¬ 
paratively  little  that  is  offered  for  home  use  has  been 
prepared  with  the  thought  of  securing,  through  the  par¬ 
ents,  the  systematic  and  orderly  development  of  a  Chris- 


68  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


tian  consciousness  and  of  Christian  attitudes  and  habits 
in  the  children.1 

(b)  The  Kindergarten  Period;  Ages  4  and  5. — Prior 
to  the  age  of  5,  often  by  the  fourth  year,  churches  are 
able  to  secure  the  attendance  of  children  at  Sunday  School 
and  thus  directly  supplement,  or  in  some  instances  cor¬ 
rect,  what  they  may  gain  through  parental  and  home  in¬ 
fluence.  Where  this  is  the  case,  the  Church  should  regard 
this  beginners’  section  of  its  school  as  an  extension  of 
the  home,  a  place  where  a  group  of  people  are  learning 
to  live  together  in  the  Christian  way.  The  teaching 
should  consist  of  stories,  simple  scenes,  in  which  are 
reflected  the  experiences  of  home  and  its  surroundings. 
Through  its  familiar  imagery  the  story  makes  its  appeal 
to  the  child’s  interest,  he  feels  himself  at  home  in  its 
atmosphere,  identifies  himself  with  its  characters,  and 
unconsciously  assumes  the  attitudes  which  the  story 
suggests.  Thus  the  meaning  of  present  experience  is 
interpreted  to  him  and  at  the  same  time  a  basis  is  laid 
for  future  conduct. 

What  is  needed  at  this  time  is  a  vivid  picturing  of  a 
fezv  fundamental  relationships:  the  relationship  of  parent 
to  child  and  of  child  to  parent;  the  relationship  of  God , 
as  parent ,  to  His  children,  and  of  children  to  God;  the 
relationship  of  children  in  the  home  to  each  other  and 
to  the  world  of  nature  about  them.  A  few  stories,  care¬ 
fully  chosen  and  assimilated  will  be  more  effective  than 
a  larger  number  hurriedly  passed  over.  The  important 
thing  is  the  thoroughness  with  which  a  relationship  is 
apprehended  or  an  attitude  confirmed  by  conscious  choice 
and  frequent  practice. 

To  outline  the  materials  which  should  be  used  in 


*As  an  example  of  material  prepared  with  this  aim  in  view, 
see  Danielson,  “Object  Lessons  for  the  Cradle  Roll”;  and  Rankin, 
“Letters  to  Parents,”  to  be  used  in  connection  with  “A  Course 
for  Beginners  in  Religious  Education.” 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  69 

carrying  out  this  purpose  is  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
present  study.  A  few  concrete  illustrations  must  serve 
as  typical  examples. 

What  can  picture  more  beautifully  the  relation  of  par¬ 
ent  to  child  and  child  to  parent  than  the  story  of  the  baby 
Moses?  Here  is  represented  tender  mother-care,  pro¬ 
viding  protection  for  the  helpless  and  trustful  little  one 
in  the  face  of  danger.  Other  aspects  of  the  parental  rela¬ 
tion  may  be  set  forth  through  stories  showing  mother-love 
supplying  food  and  clothing  or  showing  the  care  that 
mother-birds  and  other  animals  bestow  upon  their  young. 

In  a  similar  manner  may  be  exemplified  the  relation  of 
God  to  His  children ;  His  provision  for  our  needs  through 
the  gifts  of  grain  and  fruit.  This  teaching  is  particularly 
appropriate  during  the  autumn  months  when  it  serves  to 
give  a  religious  interpretation  to  the  experience  of  the 
harvest  time.  The  Thanksgiving  festival  suggests  the 
appropriate  response  to  God’s  goodness,  with  its  emphasis 
upon  the  thought  of  gratitude  and  its  suggestion  of  shar¬ 
ing  as  the  proper  expression  of  gratitude.  The  spring¬ 
time,  with  its  awakening  life,  its  gardens,  birds,  and  flow¬ 
ers,  finds  a  natural  connection  with  the  Easter  story.  God 
is  back  of  all  life,  in  the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  the  grow¬ 
ing  grass  and  trees  and  flowers,  and  in  His  great  work  of 
quickening  the  world  into  newness  of  life  we  may  all  help 
Him  by  helping  His  creatures  to  live  more  abundantly. 

The  stories  of  the  Christ-child,  together  with  the  Christ¬ 
mas  atmosphere,  emphasize  the  thought  of  kindness  and 
love,  of  family  devotion,  and  generous  giving.  Around 
the  stories  of  the  boyhood  of  Jesus  cluster  many  sugges¬ 
tions  of  thoughtful  and  obedient  conduct  and  happy  home 
relations.  The  beautiful  picture  of  Jesus  blessing  the 
children  suggests  His  love  for  them  and  in  turn  awakens 
in  them  a  love  for  Him  and  a  sense  of  intimate  relation¬ 
ship,  as  between  the  members  of  God’s  family.  The 
stories  of  His  kind  acts  and  constant  helpfulness  become 
standards  of  conduct  for  all  God’s  children. 


70  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Stories  of  children  in  other  homes,  in  Japan,  India, 
Italy,  or  Africa,  are  full  of  novelty  and  interest,  and  pre¬ 
pare  the  way  for  the  larger  conception  of  the  family  of 
God.  These,  too,  are  seen  as  our  brothers  with  whom 
we  are  to  share  the  gifts  of  our  Heavenly  Father. 

Interspersed  among  these  great  lessons,  as  occasion  may 
require,  should  be  stories  setting  forth  the  attitudes  and 
qualities  indispensable  in  the  children  of  God’s  family: 
His  children  must  learn  to  tell  the  truth,  to  control  their 
tempers,  to  be  brave — not  timid — to  take  care  of  them¬ 
selves,  to  play  happily  together,  to  be  loyal  to  home  and 
faithful  to  home  duties. 

So  far  as  practicable  the  stories  may  be  selected  from 
the  Bible.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind,  however,  that  com¬ 
paratively  few  of  the  Bible  stories  deal  specifically  with 
the  problems  of  the  little  child’s  home  life.  They  need 
to  be  supplemented  by  other  stories,  such  as  stories  of 
animal  life,  imaginative  stories  in  which  the  forces  of 
nature  are  impersonated,  and  stories  of  every-day  life  in 
the  home. 

The  lessons  may  be  put  into  practice  immediately  in  the 
class  session,  in  which  for  teaching  purposes  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  class  are  still  “at  home.”  The  teacher  should 
be  a  “motherly”  person.  The  atmosphere  of  the  room, 
its  furnishings,  its  discipline,  its  relationships,  should  be 
those  of  a  Christian  home.  The  pictures,  hung  low,  should 
be  simple  scenes  portraying  a  bit  of  nature  or  family  life. 
Songs,  games,  prayers,  conversation — all  pervaded  by  the 
same  spirit  of  kindliness  and  good-will — serve  to  deepen 
the  impression  made  by  the  story.  Letters  to  parents, 
leaflets  containing  stories  for  home  reading,  and  picture- 
books  which  the  children  make  for  father  and  mother, 
brother  or  sister,  or  neighbor,  are  convenient  ways  for 
giving  concrete  expression  to  kindly  thought  and  feeling. 

By  such  means  much  can  be  done,  even  for  children 
of  parents  who  are  careless  or  indifferent  toward  their 
responsibilities  as  religious  teachers,  to  awaken  a  con- 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  71 

sciousness  of  God,  to  correct  false  notions  of  God,  and 
to  provide  means  for  the  normal  and  natural  expression 
of  religious  feeling.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  the  Church 
can  never  hope,  nor  should  parents  expect,  to  supply 
through  the  Sunday  School  an  influence  potent  enough 
to  counteract  the  constant,  daily  impact  of  parental  ex¬ 
ample  and  home  surroundings.  At  best,  it  can  only  sup¬ 
plement  and  enhance  their  effect;  it  can  never  be  a 
substitute  for  what  parents,  and  only  parents,  can  do. 

2.  Earlier  Childhood:  Ages  6-8 

The  first  radical  adjustment,  in  the  lives  of  most  chil¬ 
dren,  is  that  which  is  made  necessary  by  going  to  school. 
It  is  an  epoch-making  experience  and  automatically  gives 
rise  to  some  serious  problems.  However  much  the 
authorities  may  strive  to  model  the  school  upon  the  pat¬ 
tern  of  the  home,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  pupil  must  find 
himself  in  an  environment  that  is  strange.  He  must 
adjust  himself  to  a  considerable  number  of  children,  who 
are  themselves  in  new  surroundings,  seeking  each  his  own 
satisfaction,  yet  all  obliged  to  conform  to  certain  regula¬ 
tions  that  are  new,  and  to  yield  allegiance  to  an  unaccus¬ 
tomed  authority.  New  people,  new  scenes,  new  duties, 
a  new  routine  with  new  interests,  and  all  presided  over  by 
a  new  person  in  control — these  are  sufficient  to  create  for 
the  child  a  new  world  in  which  he  must  find  his  place  and 
which  he  must  somehow  harmonize  with  his  home-world. 

How  will  this  sudden  impulsion  into  a  new  world  affect 
the  child’s  religious  faith  and  his  behavior  ?  He  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  a  problem.  Not  that  he  realizes 
it  as  such,  much  less  that  he  is  able  to  make  any  attempt 
at  analyzing  it.  But  in  a  more  or  less  vague  way  he  is 
conscious  of  it  and  feels  in  consequence  a  certain  sense 
of  mental  strain.  This  strain  is  due  to  uncertainty,  in 
view  of  the  sudden  expansion  of  environment.  How  far 
are  the  experiences  acquired  in  the  old  environment  of 


72  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

the  home  valid,  as  assumptions,  in  the  new  environment 
of  the  school?  Father  and  mother  have  been  left  behind. 
The  teacher  stands  in  the  place  of  parent.  Is  God  also 
left  behind?  There  may  be  little  in  the  school  program 
to  suggest  His  presence.  Little  is  said  about  Him.  There 
is  seldom  any  attempt  to  interpret  child  experience  in 
terms  of  God.  There  is  little  in  the  conduct  of  fellow 
schoolmates,  impelled  as  they  all  are  by  self-interest,  to 
suggest  that  they  are  children  of  God. 

There  is  similar  uncertainty  regarding  the  standards  of 
behavior  which  the  child  had  learned  to  recognize  in  the 
home.  How  far  are  these  applicable  to  the  new  relation¬ 
ships  of  school?  Conflict  of  purposes  arises,  as  between 
the  pupils,  or  between  the  pupils  and  the  teacher.  It  may 
even  be  that  the  standards  of  the  school  seem  inconsistent 
with  those  of  the  child’s  own  home.  How  are  these  con¬ 
flicting  experiences  to  be  reconciled,  how  are  these  two 
diverse  worlds  to  be  unified,  so  that  the  child  may  feel 
that  they  are  but  differing  aspects  of  one  harmonious, 
self-consistent  world,  in  which  the  same  standards  of 
behavior  are  to  be  everywhere  observed? 

The  aim  of  the  Church  during  the  earlier  period  of 
childhood — until,  say,  about  8  years  of  age — is  to  help 
the  child  to  strengthen  and  confirm  the  religious  ideas, 
attitudes,  and  forms  of  conduct  he  had  begun  to  hold 
and  to  practice  in  his  earlier  life  in  the  home  and  to  carry 
these  over  into  the  new  world  of  his  school  experience. 
More  specifically,  to  deepen  his  sense  of  relationship  with 
God  as  a  loving  Father  and  present  Companion,  with  whom 
he  holds  a  natural  intercourse;  to  stimulate  the  feeling  of 
reverence,  affection,  and  trust;  to  cultivate  the  spirit  of 
loyal  cooperation  with  parent,  and  now  also  with  teacher ; 
to  strengthen  attitudes  of  good-will  and  helpfulness 
toward  members  of  the  family,  and  now  likewise  toward 
schoolmates ;  to  develop  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  one’s 
share  in  the  daily  routine  and  burden  of  the  family,  and 
also  for  one’s  share  in  school  enterprises  and  in  those  of 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  73 

the  community  at  large  which  have  for  their  purpose  the 
meeting  of  human  need. 

The  teaching  at  this  time  will  be  closely  akin  to  that  of 
the  previous  period  in  that  it  will  make  use  of  story 
material  in  which  are  pictured  the  relationships  of  the 
child — to  God,  to  parent,  to  brother  and  sifter,  and 
neighbor — but  the  scope  of  these  relationships  will  include 
a  wider  company  of  people.  The  basis  of  selection  of 
material  will  be  the  particular  problems  which  the  child 
is  now  facing.  The  stories  chosen  may  be  grouped  so 
as  to  set  forth,  in  their  sequence,  a  particular  relation¬ 
ship  in  various  aspects  and  under  differing  conditions. 
Or  they  may  embody  problems  suggesting  alternatives 
of  conduct  and  requiring  reflection  before  a  course  of 
action  is  decided  upon ;  or  they  may  be  grouped  about 
an  outstanding  experience,  such  as  the  celebration  of  a 
festival  season  like  Thanksgiving,  Christmas,  or  Easter, 
so  as  to  bring  out  its  religious  meaning  and  suggest  an 
appropriate  attitude  or  act.  The  stories  may  now  have 
more  of  movement  and  dynamic  quality  than  those  used 
in  the  earlier  period,  which  needed  to  be  simple,  scenic, 
and  static. 

How,  for  example,  shall  we  help  the  child  to<  expand 
his  notion  of  God,  so  that  he  may  still  think  of  God  as 
present  in  this  new  school-world,  caring  for  him  and  sur¬ 
rounding  him  with  His  protection?  How  shall  we  sug¬ 
gest  to  him  that  reverence,  trust,  gratitude,  and  obedience 
are  still  right  attitudes  toward  God?  Have  we  stories 
anywhere  which  picture  the  expansion  of  the  idea  of  God 
as  a  spiritual  discovery? 

The  story  of  Jacob’s  dream  at  Bethel  is  in  certain 
respects  an  almost  exact  counterpart  of  the  little  child’s 
experience.  In  his  loneliness  and  fear  he  imagines  that 
he  has  gone  beyond  the  reach  of  all-protecting  care.  In 
his  troubled  sleep  he  has  a  dream  and  on  awaking  makes 
a  surprising  discovery :  “Surely  God  is  in  this  place  and 
I  knew  it  not!”  Joyfully  and  reverently  he  proceeds  on 


74  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

his  way,  confident  now  that  in  this  world  of  his  new 
experience  God  is  present  as  really  as  before.  A  similar 
thought  is  presented  in  the  story  of  Elisha,  who,  in  time 
of  danger,  revealed  to  his  frightened  servant  the  unseen 
hosts  whom  God  had  sent  to  protect  them.  God’s  pro¬ 
viding  care  for  His  wandering  people  is  set  forth  in  the 
stories  of  the  manna,  the  quails,  the  water  gushing  forth 
from  the  rock.  Jacob,  Elisha,  Moses,  David,  not  only 
discovered  God  as  a  present  helper;  they  trusted  Him  in 
each  new  situation  and  went  confidently  forward  without 
fear. 

Again,  there  are  stories  picturing  the  care  of  a  parent 
under  unusual  conditions,  such  as  absence  from  home. 
Hagar  is  the  embodiment  of  maternal  care  and  affection, 
reenforced  by  divine  help.  The  story  of  His  mother’s 
anxiety  for  the  boy  Jesus,  left  behind  in  the  temple,  is  a 
beautiful  example  of  parental  solicitude.  The  mother 
of  the  boy  Samuel  made  him  a  visit  each  year  at  the 
sanctuary  where  he  was  receiving  his  training,  bringing 
with  her  a  little  robe  which  her  loving  hands  had  made. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have,  in  such  stories  as  those  of 
Joseph  and  Jesus,  typical  instances  of  filial  devotion. 

.  Then  there  are  the  relationships  between  the  children 
themselves.  We  wish  to  develop  the  spirit  of  kindness, 
the  habit  of  helpfulness  and  generous  sharing,  respect  for 
the  rights  of  others,  cooperation  in  play  and  in  work,  not 
only  toward  those  in  their  own  homes  but  toward  school¬ 
mates  and  playmates.  For  this  the  little  child  needs 
models,  or  standards  of  conduct,  in  vivid  story  form. 
Abraham’s  generous  treatment  of  Lot  in  offering  him  the 
first  choice  of  the  land,  Rebekah’s  courtesy  to  the  tired 
servant,  the  thoughtfulness  of  the  little  Hebrew  maid  for 
her  sick  master,  the  hospitality  of  the  widow  who  shared 
her  meal  with  the  prophet,  or  the  one  who  built  an  extra 
room  for  the  prophet  in  her  house — all  these  and  many 
others  are  instances  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  in  its 
wider  application,  The  attitude  of  Jesus  is  always  that 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  75 

of  the  ideal  Son  and  Brother,  and  His  sense  of  kinship 
is  not  confined  to  those  who  are  within  His  family  circle : 
“Whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in 
heaven,  he  is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother.”  So 
we  find  in  the  Gospels  examples  of  His  constant  help¬ 
fulness,  like  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  (in  which 
a  little  boy  participated  by  sharing  his  lunch)  ;  or  the 
quieting  of  the  storm,  or  the  story-telling  by  the  lakeside, 
or  the  welcoming  of  little  children — instances  which  bring 
Him  very  near  to  the  experiences  of  childhood  and  sug¬ 
gest  a  great  variety  of  ways  of  being  kind. 

Little  children  everywhere — Italian  children,  Polish 
children,  French,  Belgian,  and  American  children,  little 
boys  and  girls  whose  skins  are  yellow,  brown,  or  black 
and  whose  tongues  speak  strange  languages — should  be 
brought  within  the  circle  of  acquaintanceship  or  friendly 
interest  and,  so  far  as  possible,  in  such  a  way  as  to  stimu¬ 
late  the  impulse  to  share  with  them  all  the  good  gifts  of 
God  which  we  enjoy. 

The  place  where  this  teaching  is  given  will  resemble 
both  home  and  school.  In  atmosphere  and  program  there 
will  be  much  that  is  familiar  and  homelike.  The  teacher 
will  be  approachable,  sympathetic,  motherly.  God  will 
still  be  “Father,”  His  presence  will  be  taken  for  granted, 
prayers  will  be  offered,  and  songs  will  be  sung.  There 
will  also  be  some  resemblance  to  school  surroundings, 
with  a  program  a  little  more  formal  than  at  home.  As  in 
school,  so  here  there  will  be  other  children  of  about  the 
same  age.  There  will  be  pictures  and  blackboards  and 
tables  and  low  chairs,  things  to  make  together  and  things 
to  discuss. 

The  purpose  of  lesson  material  is  to  set  before  the 
child  a  picture  of  an  ideal  bit  of  experience  which  is  on 
the  plan  of  his  own  present  problems.  Through  listen¬ 
ing  to  a  story,  by  imagination  the  pupil  seems  to  see 
himself  in  surroundings  which  offer  a  kind  of  parallel 
to  his  own  experience.  This  picture  of  an  ideal  situa- 


76  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tion  suggests  to  him  his  own  conduct  under  like  circum¬ 
stances.  In  order  that  the  picture  may  be  associated  in 
his  mind  and  memory  with  muscular  and  mental  effort, 
there  should  also  be  provided,  where  possible,  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  the  child  actually  to  put  into  practice  of  his 
own  choice  the  forms  of  conduct  he  has  seen  pictured. 
Much  time  will  be  given,  therefore,  to  thinking  out  to¬ 
gether  ways  of  meeting  a  difficulty,  or  arriving  at  a 
decision  that  would  be  pleasing  to  God.  There  will  be 
group  games,  group  songs,  and  especially  group  enter¬ 
prises,  in  which  religious  thought  and  feeling  find  ex¬ 
pression.  The  great  days  in  the  Christian  year,  Christ¬ 
mas,  Easter,  Thanksgiving,  and  patriotic  holidays,  will  be 
utilized  as  opportunities  for  arousing  religious  feeling, 
or  for  turning  such  feeling  already  aroused  into  forms 
of  appropriate  and  helpful  activity.  Occasions  for  wider 
helpfulness  which  are  constantly  arising,  such  as  the 
need  for  famine  relief,  the  support  of  a  children’s  hos¬ 
pital  or  a  kindergarten,  the  provision  of  an  outing  in  the 
country  for  orphans,  the  sending  of  flowers  to  the  sick, 
the  pure-milk-for-babies  campaign,  will  readily  enlist  the 
sympathetic  cooperation  of  children  of  this  age  and  have 
direct  educational  value. 

3.  Later  Childhood:  Ages  9  to  ii 

The  line  between  earlier  and  later  childhood  is  an 
imaginary  line,  not  sharply  marked  in  the  child’s  con¬ 
sciousness  as  is  the  experience  of  the  first  day  at  school. 
Nevertheless,  at  about  the  end  of  the  eighth,  or  early  in 
the  ninth,  year  close  observers  will  discern  that  a  change 
is  gradually  taking  place.  For  three  years  the  child  has 
been  going  to  school.  His  physical  surroundings  and  his 
mental  horizon  have  been  extended.  Geography  has  now 
opened  to  him  the  door  to  an  environment  wider  than 
home  and  school.  Arithmetic  has  given  the  sense  of  num¬ 
bers  and  standards  of  measurement.  Reading  has  put  at 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  77 

his  disposal  the  thoughts  of  others.  A  vast  new  world  is 
inviting  exploration. 

With  this  new  realm  of  potentially  thrilling  experience 
inviting  him,  with  an  accession  of  physical  vigor  and 
recently  acquired  knowledge,  the  child  is  urged  forward 
with  irresistible  impulse  to  enter,  examine,  collect,  and 
experiment.  The  world  which  attracts  most  strongly  is 
the  world  beyond  home  and  school — the  world  to  be 
roamed  through  on  expeditions  of  adventure,  or  lived 
through  in  the  stories  of  great  exploits,  or  investigated  in 
close  study  at  first  hand,  or  manipulated  in  original  experi¬ 
ment.  Lacking,  at  first,  the  necessary  standards  of  meas¬ 
urement  or  any  adequate  sense  of  value,  the  first  impulse 
is  to  gather  up  and  appropriate  as  his  own  everything 
that  comes  in  his  way,  without  trying  to  arrange  or 
classify.  It  is  a  time  of  acquisition,  of  restless  activity, 
of  insatiable  hunger  for  experience. 

This  new  world  is  a  social  world.  The  boy  or  girl  does 
not  wander  through  it  alone,  but  in  the  company  of  other 
boys  or  girls.  Together  they  put  their  questions  to  nature 
or  investigate  the  habits  of  wild  animals  and  birds.  It 
is  a  world  of  play,  in  which  they  feel  a  delicious  sense  of 
freedom;  a  world  that  is  immediately  interesting  and 
worth  while,  experience  of  which  is  an  end  in  itself  to 
be  enjoyed  for  its  own  sake.  While  engaged  in  acquiring 
mastery  of  their  physical  surroundings,  in  amassing 
knowledge  of  things  in  relation  to  each  other  and  them¬ 
selves,  they  are  also  stimulating  and  vying  with  each 
other  in  feats  of  strength,  agility,  and  skill.  There  is 
satisfaction  not  only  in  accomplishment  and  mastery,  but 
also  in  the  approval  expressed  by  one’s  peers.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  achievement  of  one  member  of  the  group 
becomes  a  standard  for  the  others  to  imitate,  a  goal  for 
their  attainment.  This  natural  social  group  constitutes  a 
society  in  miniature,  a  place  to  try  out,  to  dramatize, 
the  customs  and  experiences  of  real  life. 

Their  world  is  also  a  world  of  conflict.  Each  member 


78  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCEI 

of  the  group  is  impelled  by  the  same  instinctive  curiosity, 
the  same  hunger  for  experience,  the  same  desire  to  pos¬ 
sess.  The  result,  of  course,  is  interference,  aggression, 
fighting.  The  stronger  takes  delight  in  exercising  his 
strength  upon  the  weaker,  in  teasing  a  defenseless  animal 
or  a  younger  child.  The  one  who  is  conscious  of  his 
power  tramples  upon  the  rights  of  an  inferior  and  be¬ 
comes  a  bully.  To  an  adult,  or  outsider,  there  is  some¬ 
thing  ruthless,  cruel,  savage,  about  this  world  of  later 
childhood.  It  is,  however,  a  stage  in  the  process  of 
finding  one’s  place  in  the  world  and  of  learning  to  live  with 
others.  The  task  of  the  educator  is  to  transform  these 
instinctive  tendencies  into  useful  impulses — to  awaken 
sympathy,  to  develop  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  to 
arouse  a  spirit  of  chivalry,  to  cultivate  a  sense  of  group 
loyalty  and  responsibility,  to  direct  the  fighting  impulse 
toward  things  worth  fighting  for,  such  as  pertain  to  the 
common  welfare  rather  than  to  individual  advantage. 

The  chief  objective  of  the  Church  during  these  years 
is  the  training  of  boys  and  girls  to  achievement  through 
self-discipline  and  through  cooperative  effort .  The  great 
end  to  be  gained  now  is  the  power  of  self-control — the 
control  of  the  body,  its  impulses,  appetites,  movements ; 
the  control  of  the  mind,  its  thoughts,  desires,  instincts, 
passions,  and  its  choices  in  the  presence  of  differing 
values.  And  in  order  that  attention  may  not  be  required 
for  repeated  adjustment  to  the  same  kinds  of  problems 
it  is  important  that  the  main  lines  of  activity,  the  more 
important  attitudes,  become  early  and  permanently  estab¬ 
lished  as  habits. 

The  one  great  outstanding  need  of  the  boys  and  girls 
during  this  period  is  the  need  for  some  clue,  some  stand¬ 
ard,  some  principle  that  will  enable  them  to  evaluate  this 
mass  of  facts  and  experiences  that  has  been  suddenly 
spread  out  before  them.  What  does  it  all  mean?  How 
are  all  these  things  related  to  each  other  and  to  them¬ 
selves  ?  How  can  one  ever  hope  to  bring  all  this  com- 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  79 

plexity  under  control?  They  need  an  interpretation  of 
this  new  addition  to  their  world,  not  in  the  form  of  an 
abstract  or  philosophical  statement,  but  in  terms  of  pur¬ 
pose  and  motive  to  action. 

As  an  essential  prerequisite  to  any  other  service  it 
may  perform,  the  Church  must  undertake,  as  a  task  of 
first  importance,  still  further  to  expand  the  idea  of  God 
and  to  deepen  the  boys’  and  girls’  consciousness  of 
God.  God  will  still  be  their  “Father,”  but  He  will  be  also 
Worker  and  Creator — the  great,  wise,  powerful  Cause, 
back  of  His  world,  and  its  Lawgiver — yet  not  in  any  sense 
an  abstraction,  but  a  personal  Friend  and  Companion,  a 
Guide  and  Helper.  This  consciousness  of  God  the 
Church  will  develop  not  so  much  by  talking  about  it  as 
by  assuming  as  a  fact,  in  the  background  of  all  its  guid¬ 
ance  of  childhood,  His  presence  and  interest.  All  this 
world  is  regarded  as  God’s  world ;  all  men  are  His  chil¬ 
dren,  meant  to  live  happily  together ;  all  the  laws  of 
nature  are  His  laws,  and  observance  of  them  will  assure 
our  welfare.  This  world  as  He  planned  it  is  orderly  and 
happy.  Where  it  fails  of  being  such,  the  failure  is  due 
to  our  lack  of  knowledge  of  His  way,  or  our  unwilling¬ 
ness  to  accept  it  for  ourselves. 

The  Church  will  undertake  to  reveal  the  laws  of  God 
for  human  life  by  setting  before  the  boys  and  girls  the 
dramatic  stories  of  persons  who,  through  heroic  endeavor, 
were  learning  to  live  masterfully  as  individuals,  and  hap¬ 
pily  together  in  glad  conformity  to  God’s  laws — persons 
who  were  masterful  and  happy  because  they  were  men  of 
faith,  obedient  and  law-abiding,  or  weak  and  unhappy 
failures  when  lacking  in  faith  and  disobedient  to  God’s 
laws.  This  will  not  be,  strictly  speaking,  a  course  of 
study  in  the  biographies  of  religious  men.  It  will  rather 
be  a  sharing  of  human  experience,  a  living  through  to¬ 
gether  of  the  exploits  of  great  men  meeting  strange  ad¬ 
ventures,  overcoming  unexpected  dangers,  fighting 
doughty  opponents,  doing  the  ordinary,  prosaic  duty  of 


8o  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


life  in  a  noble,  cheerful  way,  and  through  it  all  keeping 
an  intimate  and  friendly  relation  to  God.  Thus  the 
Church  provides  for  the  boys  and  girls  models  for  their 
admiration  and  imitation.  “The  right  in  the  early  years 
is  what  one’s  models  endorse ;  the  wrong  is  what  they 
condemn.”  But  they  should  be  presented  in  such  a  way 
as  to  stimulate,  not  stifle,  individual  activity  and  mental 
effort.  Imitation  “should  involve  conscious  choice  of 
models,  should  involve  analysis  of  the  method  of  gaining 
results  comparable  with  the  model’s  in  order  that  attain¬ 
ment  may  more  nearly  measure  up  with  ideals.  This 
use  of  imitation  involves  judgment  and  choice,  construc¬ 
tive  imagination,  and  independent  work.”  2 

The  Old  Testament  is  rich  in  stories  suited  to  the 
needs  of  this  period.  Its  very  first  chapters  present,  in 
a  dramatic  and  impressive  manner,  a  picture  of  the  cre¬ 
ative  activity  of  God  and  the  process  by  which  chaos 
was  reduced  to  order.  In  the  second  story  of  creation  the 
world  is  pictured  as  a  garden,  interesting,  beautiful,  at¬ 
tractive,  in  which  God  has  placed  us  for  our  happiness 
and  in  the  care  of  which  He  expects  our  help.  A  friendly 
world,  a  powerful  but  kindly  God,  a  pleasant  compan¬ 
ionship — such  is  the  teaching  of  the  first  two  chapters 
of  Genesis.  The  third  chapter  emphasizes  the  duty  of 
self-control — more  specifically,  the  control  of  appetite — a 
particularly  difficult  thing  for  boys  and  girls  at  this  age. 
It  pictures  a  personal  relationship  to  God,  a  knowledge 
of  His  will,  a  possibility  of  choice,  a  conflict  between 
opposing  forces,  the  loss  of  happiness  through  disobedi¬ 
ence  to  God.  In  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  the  duty  of 
respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  the  duty  of  appreciation, 
is  contrasted  with  the  dangers  of  jealousy  and  hatred. 
The  disaster  of  the  Flood  and  the  deliverance  of 
Noah  broaden  the  conception  of  the  tendency  toward 

2  See  Norsworthy  and  Whitley,  “The  Psychology  of  Child¬ 
hood,”  pp.  73,  74.  O’Shea,  “Social  Development  and  Education,” 

p.  78. 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  81 


selfish  and  wilful  conduct  and  reveal  its  consequences. 

Poetic  passages  which  give  utterance  to  these  same 
truths  form  a  fitting  vehicle  for  expressing  the  sentiments 
naturally  aroused  by  such  stories.  The  19th  Psalm,  or 
passages  from  the  24th,  the  33d,  the  77th,  the  147th,  and 
the  148th,  may  be  committed  to  memory  and  used  in 
connection  with  worship.  Hymns,  like 

‘‘Lord  of  all  being,  throned  afar, 

Thy  glory  flames  from  sun  and  star/’ 
or 

“My  God,  I  thank  thee,  who  hast  made 
The  earth  so  bright,” 

voice  the  feelings  of  reverence,  appreciation,  and  grati¬ 
tude  which  appropriately  arise  in  connection  with  the 
thought  of  God  in  nature.  Nature  walks,  bird  walks, 
“astronomy  parties,”  garden  clubs,  all  help  to  deepen  the 
sense  of  comradeship  with  nature  and  of  communion  and 
cooperation  with  the  God  of  nature. 

The  patriarchs  lived  and  moved  in  an  atmosphere 
peculiarly  congenial  to  boys  and  girls  at  this  period.  The 
nomadic  wanderings,  the  picturesque  personalities,  their 
simple  faith,  their  achievements  and  their  shortcomings, 
the  practical  problems  of  conduct  in  primitive  social  rela¬ 
tionships — all  these  are  faithfully  set  forth  in  a  series 
of  dramatic  episodes  closely  analagous  in  many  respects 
to  the  experience  of  boys  and  girls.  They  will  appreciate 
and  enjoy  the  romance  of  Abraham’s  departure  from 
home  in  response  to  the  Divine  command,  his  long  journey 
in  search  of  a  better  country,  his  solemn  act  of  worship 
as  he  comes  to  a  stopping-place.  They  will  feel  a  certain 
sympathy  with  him  in  his  relation  to  his  immediate 
patriarchal  group.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  question  of 
the  moral  basis  of  relationship  between  groups  is  raised 
three  times  in  Genesis  (12:9  to  13:1;  20;  26:1-14)  in 
practically  the  same  form.  How  far  is  one  under  obliga¬ 
tion  to  speak  the  truth?  Is  not  falsehood  permissible  in 
time  of  danger  and  as  a  means  of  avoiding  unpleasant 


82  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


experiences?  Must  one  tell  the  truth  outside  of  his  im¬ 
mediate  social  circle?  Such  is  the  problem  embodied  in 
these  episodes,  a  problem  that  is  real  and  vital  to  boys 
and  girls.  They  may  indeed  be  truthful  to  their  own 
associates,  but  to  the  members  of  another  gang,  to  the 
school  teacher,  to  the  policeman,  or  even  to  their  parents, 
they  may  have  little  hesitation  in  telling  a  falsehood,  if 
unpleasant  consequences  are  likely  to  follow  the  telling 
of  the  truth. 

The  controversy  between  the  herdsmen  of  Abraham 
and  those  of  Lot  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  relation¬ 
ship  between  rival  groups,  or  factions  of  the  same  group. 
Shall  they  fight  it  out,  or  find  a  just  basis  of  agreement? 
In  Abraham’s  magnanimous  treatment  of  Lot  is  provided 
an  intelligible  standard  of  action.  In  Abraham’s  rescue 
of  Lot  from  the  three  kings  there  is  recognition  not  only 
of  social  responsibility  but  of  the  obligation  to  fight 
against  a  social  wrong.  The  same  thought  is  presented 
again,  with  added  religious  emphasis,  in  Abraham’s  rescue 
of  Lot  from  Sodom. 

Jacob  and  Esau  are  examples,  respectively,  of  self- 
seeking  shrewdness  and  deceit  pitted  against  uncontrolled 
appetite.  Esau’s  loss  of  “birthright,”  Jacob’s  flight  from 
home,  the  long  journey  to  Llaran  and  extended  period  of 
service  with  Laban,  his  dread  of  meeting  Esau,  his 
struggle  with  the  unknown  opponent,  all  suggest  that 
deceit  and  trickery,  in  the  long  run,  do  not  pay.  In  the 
series  of  episodes  in  the  narrative  of  Joseph,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  transparent  candor,  his  loyalty  to  his 
ideals  of  honor  and  purity,  his  fearless  effort  to  be  true 
to  his  God,  his  sense  of  justice  and  fair-dealing,  his 
forgiveness  of  his  brothers  and  his  affection  for  his 
father,  find  abundant  sanction  in  the  success  with  which 
his  efforts  were  rewarded.  Such  stories  as  these  ought 
not  merely  to  be  told,  but  read,  learned,  and  dramatized 
by  all  our  boys  and  girls. 

They  need  to  be  supplemented  by  stories  of  other 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  83 

pioneers  who  went  forth  upon  adventures  of  faith  and  in 
the  consciousness  of  a  divine  mission :  the  Pilgrim  Fath¬ 
ers,  braving  the  storms  of  a  wintry  sea  that  they  might 
be  free  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their 
own  conscience ;  men  like  Livingstone,  meeting  countless 
dangers  and  overcoming  almost  incredible  difficulties  as 
he  explored  the  trackless  jungles  of  Africa.  As  they 
share  the  emotions  of  such  heroes,  they  may  find  fitting 
expression  for  them  in  hymns  like  Leonard  Bacon’s : 

“O  God,  beneath  thy  guiding  hand, 

Our  exiled  fathers  crossed  the  sea.” 

While  in  Genesis  the  stories  reflect  chiefly  the  rela¬ 
tions  between  individuals  within  the  family  group  and 
only  occasionally  reveal  consciousness  of  other  groups, 
in  Exodus  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  problems  which 
arise  in  connection  with  the  wider  relations  of  men:  the 
relation  of  servant  to  master,  of  workman  to  overseer,  of 
subject  to  ruler.  Here  we  have  a  series  of  episodes  in 
which  is  being  fought  out  the  battle  for  freedom,  the 
struggle  of  a  group  of  people  against  oppressive  masters. 
Moreover,  we  see  in  the  stories  of  the  Exodus  a  social 
group  in  process  of  formation.  At  first  unorganized, 
it  proceeds  to  organize  itself  under  the  leadership  of 
Moses,  it  gradually  achieves  a  kind  of  group  solidarity, 
it  learns  how  to  secure  its  own  elemental  necessities — 
food,  shelter,  land — and  to  defend  itself  against  its 
enemies,  it  makes  for  itself  laws  to  govern  its  intra¬ 
group  relationships ;  and  throughout  this  process  the 
reader  is  reminded  of  the  great  leader’s  consciousness 
of  his  own  inadequacy,  his  dependence  upon  God,  his 
constant  attempt  to  act  in  accordance  with  God’s  will  for 
his  people,  and  his  effort  also  to  impress  upon  the  impa¬ 
tient  group  their  own  dependence  upon  God.  All  this  is 
closely  similar  to  what  takes  place  in  the  lives  of  boys  and 
girls  during  later  childhood  and  makes  the  stories  of  the 
Exodus  peculiarly  valuable  for  this  period.  Not  that  they 


84  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

“recapitulate”  the  history  of  the  human  race,  but 
rather  that  each  individual  must  learn  how  to  live  peace¬ 
ably  and  happily  with  others,  must  learn  how  to  limit 
himself,  adapt  himself,  control  himself,  and  he  does  this 
at  first  on  a  small  scale,  in  a  group  spontaneously  formed 
of  those  of  his  own  age  and  sex  and  condition.  This 
group  too  must  have  a  chance  to  acquire  a  group 
consciousness,  it  must  have  group  leadership,  it  must  de¬ 
velop  group  loyalty,  it  must  work  out  some  basis  for  an 
orderly  group  life,  it  must  learn  to  maintain  itself  as  a 
group  against  disintegrating  forces.  In  the  quest  of  ex¬ 
perience  and  freedom  the  lesson  must  be  learned — just 
as  it  was  in  the  discipline  of  the  wilderness — that  there 
can  be  no  freedom,  no  experience  that  is  satisfying,  except 
in  accordance  with  law.  After  becoming  familiar  with 
these  experiences  of  Moses  and  his  people,  the  whole  mat¬ 
ter  may  be  summed  up  in  the  form  of  general  statements, 
as  in  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  the  more  specific  com¬ 
mands,  in  Leviticus  19,  covering  theft,  false  testimony, 
gossip  mongering,  lying,  respect  for  parents,  elders  and 
those  in  authority,  tale-bearing,  harboring  resentment, 
seeking  revenge,  and  the  like. 

In  the  book  of  Judges  we  are  brought  more  completely 
to  consider  the  relationships  of  groups  to  each  other.  We 
have  the  picture  of  group  solidarity  in  the  effort  to  pos¬ 
sess  the  land,  group  loyalty  for  a  definite  end  for  group 
advantage.  This  in  itself  is  a  distinct  achievement,  in¬ 
volving  the  subordination  of  individual  interests  to  the 
welfare  of  the  larger  whole.  The  stories  of  Deborah, 
Gideon,  Jepthah,  Samson,  and  others  bring  out  different 
aspects  of  this  problem  and  provide  material  for  fruitful 
group  discussion.  Through  it  all,  the  boys  and  girls 
should  not  miss  the  lesson  of  the  book  as  a  whole :  social 
order  is  dependent  upon  religious  faith,  trust,  and  accept¬ 
ance  of  God’s  laws ;  the  lack  of  these  leads  to  social 
anarchy,  chaos,  and  suffering.  Specific  lessons  readily 
suggest  themselves  in  other  Old  Testament  stories. 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  85 

David’s  battle  with  Goliath  is  a  classic  illustration  of 
moral  and  physical  courage;  Nathan’s  rebuke  in  the  para¬ 
ble  of  the  pet  lamb  is  a  forceful  repudiation  of  the  theory 
that  might  makes  right;  the  exploits  of  Elijah  illustrate 
both  moral  courage  and  the  effect  of  physical  weariness ; 
Naaman  and  Gehazi  reveal  the  meanness  of  a  covetous 
spirit;  Daniel  emphasizes  the  importance  of  self-control 
in  appetite  and  the  glory  of  a  courageous  devotion  to  high 
ideals. 

There  is,  of  course,  much  in  the  Old  Testament  ma¬ 
terial  that  is  below  the  standards  of  a  Christian  civiliza¬ 
tion.  Not  infrequently  acts  which  we  should  now  char¬ 
acterize  as  unjustifiable,  or  even  brutal  and  savage  in  their 
cruelty,  pass  without  condemnation.  Such  acts  need  not 
be  defended.  They  represent  a  stage  of  social  progress. 
To  boys  and  girls  these  may  not  seem  so  incongruous  as 
they  do  to  adults,  for  they  themselves  are  not  yet  far 
beyond  a  similar  stage  of  development.  Let  them  discuss 
together  these  questions  of  right  and  wrong.  But  the 
time  must  come  when  they  will  need  to  be  brought  face 
to  face  with  higher  standards  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  There 
need  not  be  any  attempt,  however,  at  this  period  to 
teach  the  “Life  of  Christ”  as  such,  still  less  a  philosophy 
of  His  life.  The  first  disciples  thought  of  Jesus  as  a 
man  who  was  ever  conscious  of  the  presence  of  God.  To 
Him,  this  was  always  God’s  world.  His  care  was  over 
the  smallest  of  His  creatures,  and  His  highest  joy  was 
found  in  giving  Himself  untiringly  to  working  with  God 
by  helping  the  people  about  Him.  The  earliest  Gospel, 
Mark,  is  a  collection  of  stories  setting  forth  the  activities 
of  Jesus  in  these  ways ;  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  contains 
in  addition  a  summary  of  Jesus’  sayings  as  principles  of 
life;  the  Gospel  of  Luke  emphasizes  still  further  His 
tenderness,  sympathy,  and  kindness  in  relieving  human 
need.  It  is  not  until  we  get  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  that 
an  attempt  is  tnade  to  account  for  Jesus.  The  teaching 
of  the  Church  for  these  years  of  later  childhood  should 


86  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


follow  mainly  the  concrete  story  method  of  Mark  and 
Luke,  showing  Jesus  always  as  the  man  of  noble  and 
generous  action  meeting  day  by  day  the  problems  of  life 
in  the  midst  of  our  ordinary  relationships,  but  in  a  new 
and  better  way.  There  may  be  included  also  such  por¬ 
tions  of  Matthew  as  complete  the  picture,  supply  his  rules 
of  conduct,  and  reveal  the  attitude  of  trust  and  the  spirit 
of  good-will  as  the  heart  of  Jesus’  way  of  life. 

The  deeds  of  other  great  and  good  men  should  be  por¬ 
trayed,  men  who  followed  Jesus  immediately  or  subse¬ 
quently:  stories  of  the  early  Christian  group  and  its 
communal  life,  Ananias,  Stephen,  Peter,  and  Paul;  stories 
of  helpfulness,  stories  of  controversy  and  struggle,  stories 
of  faith  and  achievement.  With  these  may  be  studied  pas¬ 
sages  in  the  letters  of  Paul  regarding  the  importance  of 
physical  self-discipline  and  the  control  of  appetite  and 
passion,  the  evils  of  quarreling,  jealousy,  ill  temper,  slan¬ 
der,  gossip,  and  sexual  vice  and  urging  that  the  body  be 
kept  fit  for  the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  God ;  passages 
regarding  control  of  the  thoughts ;  and  passages  in  which 
the  various  relationships  within  the  family  and  the  com¬ 
munity  are  set  forth  in  their  Christian  aspects.  This 
list  may  be  supplemented  indefinitely  by  stories  of  men 
and  women  who  have  lived  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  and 
who  have  made  contribution  to  the  welfare  of  mankind. 
Colonel  Waring  who  cleaned  up  Cuba ;  Clara  Barton,  the 
founder  of  the  Red  Cross  in  America ;  physicians  like  Dr. 
Lozier  who  gave  their  lives  in  the  effort  to  eradicate 
yellow  fever;  missionaries  like  Paton  of  the  New 
Hebrides  or  Jackson  in  Alaska  or  Judson  in  Burma  or 
Grenfell  in  Labrador — here  are  stories  full  of  adventure, 
romance,  and  Christian  heroism.  The  whole  course  of 
study  may  be  summed  up  by  a  perusal,  and  perhaps 
memorization,  of  portions  of  the  “picture-gallery”  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews,  while  admiration  for  these 
heroes  may  be  expressed  through  such  hymns  as 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  CHILD  87 

“The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war — 

Who  follows  in  his  train  ?” 

Out  of  all  this  study  there  should  gradually  emerge  a 
body  of  laws,  standards,  rules  of  life,  representing  the 
requirements  to  which  everyone  who  loves  God  will  make 
his  conduct  conform — a  set  of  rules  not  unlike  those 
expressed  in  the  Boy  Scout  oath,  but  more  fully  elabo¬ 
rated  and  going  rather  more  into  detail.  They  will  be 
honest,  they  will  tell  the  truth,  they  will  respect  the  rights 
of  others,  they  will  be  alert  to  do  a  good  turn,  they  will 
be  fair  in  play,  faithful  in  doing  their  duty,  industrious, 
respectful  to  elders,  obedient  to  those  in  authority,  chival¬ 
rous  toward  the  weak,  and  kind  to  all.  Every  boy  and 
girl  should  acquire  such  a  definite  body  of  rules  as  a 
permanent  possession.  But  they  do  not  acquire  these  by 
a  mere  act  of  memorization.  The  best  laws  are  those 
which  each  individual  formulates  for  himself,  tests  in 
his  own  experience,  and  adopts  as  his  own  free  act  of 
choice.  Whatever  of  value  there  may  be  in  suggesting  a 
classic  phrasing  of  such  rules  of  conduct,  the  memoriza¬ 
tion  of  these  should  come  after,  rather  than  before,  dis¬ 
cussion  and  explanation.  Otherwise  they  have  little  more 
value  than  to  acquaint  him  with  a  vocabulary,  lacking  in 
vital  content.  Place  must  be  provided,  therefore,  for 
discussion  of  alternatives,  weighing  of  motives,  passing 
judgment,  making  choices;  for  dramatizations,  which  will 
help  them  to  feel  more  keenly  the  emotions  accompany¬ 
ing  such  conduct;  for  group  enterprises  of  their  own  in 
which  the  standards  that  they  have  seen  in  others  acquire 
reality  in  their  own  lives. 

In  every  possible  way  the  material  of  instruction 
should  become  a  vital  part  of  every-day  experience.  The 
teaching  program  fails  that  does  not  provide  opportunity 
for  giving  expression  in  actual  living  to  the  feelings 
and  attitudes  which  are  embodied  in  the  characters 
studied.  Service  activities  should  be  a  vital  part  of  the 


88  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

religious  education  of  boys  and  girls;  missions  and  social 
service  will  not  then  be  regarded  as  accomplishments 
grafted  upon  the  Christian  life,  but  the  life  itself  coming 
to  normal  expression.  Training  in  worship  needs  to  be 
made  natural,  vital,  spontaneous,  and  pervasive;  prayer 
and  song  and  communion  with  God  are  not  occasional 
pietistic  performances  but  belong  to  the  very  essence  of 
Christian  consciousness.  The  child,  no  doubt,  needs  to 
become  familiar  with  prayers  and  hymns  and  other  forms 
of  words  which  religiously  minded  persons  have  found 
a  satisfying  means  of  cultivating  a  sense  of  companion¬ 
ship  with  God ;  but  he  needs  also  practice  in  phrasing 
his  own  sense  of  dependence  and  need  and  grateful 
appreciation. 

The  task  of  the  Church  for  this  age,  in  a  word,  is  to 
present  to  the  boys  and  girls  pictures  or  models  of  con¬ 
duct,  and  to  make  these  pictures  really  live  by  interpreting 
the  episodes  and  exploits  in  terms  of  their  own  present 
experience. 

The  great  majority  of  children  drop  out  of  day  school 
at  the  end  of  this  period.  The  Church  must  face  the 
fact  that  many  are  also  likely  soon  to  pass  beyond  the 
reach  of  its  teaching  agencies.  Whatever  it  has  taught, 
or  failed  to  teach,  by  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  year 
must  serve,  for  many,  as  their  equipment  for  life.  Even 
for  those  who  remain  within  the  sphere  of  the  Church’s 
influence,  the  teaching  of  these  early  years  will  become 
the  foundation  upon  which  must  be  built  the  later  struc¬ 
ture  of  Christian  character.  From  every  point  of  view, 
therefore,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  the  Church  during  this  elementary  period,  and 
particularly  during  these  active,  restless  years  of  later 
childhood,  be  thorough,  systematic,  practical,  vivid,  and 
vital. 


CHAPTER  IV 


TEACHING  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

TO  YOUTH 

At  about  12  years  of  age  every  young  person  crosses 
an  imaginary  line  which  separates  childhood  from  youth. 
It  may  not  be  possible  in  any  individual  instance  to 
designate  the  exact  date,  and  we  must  guard  against 
emphasizing  the  stages  of  development  so  much  as  to 
obscure  the  fact  of  continuity  of  experience,  but  it  is 
certain  that  a  transition  takes  place  which  is  attended  by 
radical  changes  in  consciousness  and  fraught  with  the 
utmost  significance  for  education  and  religion. 

Most,  if  not  all,  of  the  characteristic  problems  of 
adolescent  years  find  their  primary  cause  in  physical 
changes.  With  the  rapid  increase  in  stature  the  young 
person  gains  literally  a  new  “point  of  view.”  Instead  of 
“looking  up”  to  his  elders  he  now  finds  himself  on  a  level 
with  them  and  “looks  them  in  the  eye.”  This  naturally 
gives  rise  to  a  new  feeling  of  independence,  of  equality, 
freedom,  and  no  doubt  goes  far  to  explain  the  young 
person’s  resentment  at  the  restraints  imposed  by  adult 
authorit)"  and  insistence  upon  being  treated  as  a  reason¬ 
ing  being.  Again,  growth  and  development  of  bones  and 
muscles,  proceeding  at  different  rates  of  speed,  give  rise 
to  a  physical  uneasiness  and  to  awkwardness  in  move¬ 
ment.  This  awkwardness,  which  is  frequently  the  occa¬ 
sion  of  rebuke,  ridicule,  and  misunderstanding  on  the 
part  of  parents,  creates  a  feeling  of  shyness,  sensitiveness, 
self-consciousness.  Not  infrequently  there  develops  a 
sense  of  isolation  from  adult  society  and  at  the  same  time 
a  reluctance  to  associate  with  younger  boys  and  girls 
whose  ways  have  been  outgrown.  Hence  arise  among 

89 


90  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

young  people  the  spontaneously  formed  groups  or 
“gangs”  of  their  own  “set” — composed  of  their  peers, 
sympathetic  spirits  who  are  facing  similar  problems  and 
who  are  intensely  loyal  to  each  other.  Other  physical 
changes  have  to  do  with  the  ripening  of  the  organs  of 
sex  and  attending  this  development  are  strange  new  in¬ 
stincts,  whose  significance  is  but  imperfectly  realized  by 
youth,  but  whose  presence  begins  to  be  evidenced  by  a 
new  attraction  of  each  sex  toward  the  other. 

Here,  then,  is  our  young  person,  overgrown,  awkward, 
independent,  possibly  defiant  of  authority,  restless,  sensi¬ 
tive,  inconsistent,  critical,  elusive,  clannish,  sentimental, 
irresponsible,  self-conscious;  yet  loyal,  eager,  enthusiastic, 
ready  to  cooperate  and  even  to  be  self-sacrificing  within 
the  limits  of  his  self-chosen  social  group;  desiring  free¬ 
dom  but  shirking  duty — a  difficult,  lovable,  tantalizing, 
and  exasperating  age. 

i.  Early  Adolescence:  Ages  12  to  16 

The  years  immediately  preceding  adolescence  were 
years  of  acquisition.  The  boy  or  girl  was  engaged  in 
collecting  facts  and  material  things,  information,  experi¬ 
ences — everything  that  could  be  appropriated — and  with¬ 
out  much  thought  as  to  their  relative  values  or  much 
attempt  at  arrangement  and  classification.  The  time  has 
now  come  to  assort  this  mass  of  detail,  to  find  a  clue  to 
its  organization,  to  employ  critical  comparison,  to  set 
standards  of  value,  to  find  an  ideal  toward  which  to 
grow  and  to  which  to  commit  one’s  life.  A  new  con¬ 
sciousness  of  self  is  now  arising  and  one  is  searching 
for  the  stuff  out  of  which  a  self  is  to  be  made. 

If  the  Church  has  properly  performed  its  teaching 
work  up  to  this  point  we  may  assume  a  religious  equip¬ 
ment  at  entrance  upon  adolescence  somewhat  as  follows: 
a  consciousness  of  God  as  Father,  Helper  ever-present, 
Worker,  Creator,  and  Lawgiver;  an  attitude  toward  God 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  91 

of  trust,  affection,  gratitude,  and  loyal  cooperation  with 
His  purposes ;  a  conception  of  the  world  as  God’s  world, 
of  nature  as  the  expression  of  His  wisdom,  power,  and 
love;  of  human  society  as  the  family  of  God,  in  which 
each  member  is  responsible  for  respecting  the  rights  of 
others  and  for  cooperation  with  all  for  the  common  wel¬ 
fare;  a  wide  acquaintance  with  persons,  historical  and 
contemporaneous,  the  story  of  whose  lives  is  the  story 
of  achievement  made  possible  by  faith  in  God  and  con¬ 
formity  to  His  laws ;  a  knowledge  of  Jesus  as  the  one 
who  embodies  most  perfectly  and  expresses  most  fully 
this  spirit  of  comradeship  with  God  and  harmony  with 
His  will ;  habits  of  private  and  group  worship,  in  ways 
that  are  the  natural  expression  of  child  aspiration ;  and 
habits  of  fair  play,  honesty,  and  truthfulness  on  the  play¬ 
ground;  of  helpfulness,  self-control,  and  conformity  to 
God’s  rules  of  life  in  general,  coupled  with  a  knowledge 
of  simply  formulated  statements  of  such  laws  or  rules  as 
are  fundamental  to  happy  life  together.  Assuming  all 
this,  what  further  is  needed  to  equip  the  adolescent  for 
exploring  this  new  world  of  self  and  meeting  his  new 
problems  ? 

It  should  be  the  aim  of  the  Church  at  this  period  to 
introduce  young  people  as  widely  as  possible  to  the  lives 
of  great  men  and  women — ancient  Hebrews,  early  Chris¬ 
tians,  saints,  apostles,  missionaries,  and  those  who  in  all 
ages  have  followed  high  ideals  and  served  their  fellow- 
men.  This  study  will  not  concern  itself  now  so  much 
with  deeds  as  with  motives ,  not  so  much  with  exploits 
as  with  loyalties.  These  lives  will  be  presented  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  raise  in  each  instance  the  kinds  of  prob¬ 
lems  youth  must  grapple  with,  and  the  members  of  the 
group  will  be  encouraged  to  enter  sympathetically,  but 
also  critically,  into  a  discussion  of  the  possible  courses 
of  action ,  the  motives  which  finally  led  to  decision,  and 
the  comparative  values  of  results  attained. 

The  range  of  problems  thus  exemplified  in  concrete 


92  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

characters  will  be  as  wide  as  possible.  Problems  con¬ 
cerning  the  physical  life  will  be  presented  in  lives  that 
regarded  the  body  as  sacred,  to  be  kept  pure  as  the  instru¬ 
ment  of  the  spirit  of  God.  There  will  be  a  study  of  lives 
in  their  relation  to  other  lives  as  members  of  families, 
social  groups,  the  community,  the  nation,  and  the  world. 
The  object  will  be  to  discover  the  attitudes  and  motives 
which  should  govern  human  relationships,  and  especially 
to  widen  sympathy  and  to  extend  the  area  within  which 
loyalty  to  one’s  fellowmen  is  operative.  Through  all 
these  lives  will  run,  as  a  golden  thread,  the  religious 
motive,  the  consciousness  of  God  as  present  Friend,  Com¬ 
panion,  Guide. 

Through  contact  with  such  lives  youth  will  be  gather¬ 
ing  and  sifting  the  material  out  of  which  an  Ideal,  a  Self, 
is  made  and  gradually,  by  processes  of  elimination,  criti¬ 
cism,  and  synthesis,  will  be  arriving  at  a  standard  of 
conduct  embodied  in  an  ideal  personality.  Whatever 
finally  receives  recognition  as  Ideal  will  command  thence¬ 
forth  the  loyal  devotion  of  youth.  It  is  this  free  com¬ 
mitment  of  the  self  to  the  Ideal  which  is  the  climax 
toward  which  all  educational  processes  converge. 

For  such  study  it  is  not  so  necessary  that  many  lives 
be  studied  as  that  certain  typical,  idealistic  personalities 
be  studied  intensively.  The  material  should  show  these 
in  the  act  of  facing  crises  or  issues,  they  should  reveal 
deliberation  and  suspended  judgment  in  the  presence  of 
these  issues  and,  if  possible,  the  motives  that  led  to  de¬ 
cisions.  As  the  study  progresses,  there  should  be  dis¬ 
closed,  from  these  successive  grapplings  with  problems, 
certain  underlying  life  purposes,  or  ideals,  in  accordance 
with  which  decisions  were  consistently  made.  Finally, 
there  should  be  some  clue  as  to  the  attitude  of  the  person 
himself  toward  his  own  ideals,  decisions,  and  acts ;  did 
he  find  them,  on  the  whole,  satisfying  and,  if  so,  on  what 
ground?  Or  was  he  laying  up  for  himself  all  the  time 
a  harvest  of  barren  regrets? 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  93 

The  life  of  Moses,  for  example,  may  be  made  the  basis 
for  such  study.  With  many  of  the  incidents  in  his  life 
the  pupils  are  already  familiar,  but  not  with  his  inner 
struggles  and  purposes.  These  are  revealed  as  one  tries 
to  put  to  himself  the  problem  which  confronted  Moses 
and  to  live  through  with  him  the  experiences  he  encoun¬ 
tered  in  attempting  step  by  step  to  work  out  its  solution. 

What,  in  fact,  was  the  problem  of  Moses?  Nothing 
less  than  the  deliverance  of  his  people  and  the  training 
of  them  to  live  together  in  a  safe  and  well-ordered  society. 
The  background  of  Egyptian  life,  the  opportunities  at 
the  court  of  Pharaoh,  the  obligation  of  Moses  to 
Pharaoh’s  daughter  for  his  bringing  up  and  education 
— all  these  should  be  weighed  over  against  the  priva¬ 
tions  and  the  ignominy  which  were  the  lot  of  his 
people.  The  scene  in  the  desert  at  the  burning  bush 
exhibits  Moses  in  the  act  of  making  his  decision. 
Other  factors  are  mentioned — his  lack  of  certain  desir¬ 
able  talents,  his  uncertainty  as  to  the  response  to  his  lead¬ 
ership,  his  shrinking  from  the  magnitude  of  the  task. 
With  this  as  a  clue  to  interpretation  the  whole  career  of 
Moses  may  be  studied.  How  far  was  his  conduct  con¬ 
sistently  controlled  by  this  great  initial  purpose?  Was 
his  faith  justified?  How  were  his  native  deficiencies 
supplemented?  Did  his  faith  in  God  or  his  devotion  to 
his  people  ever  falter?  How  far  did  he  succeed  and 
wherein  did  he  fail  and  why?  By  making  this  project 
of  Moses  their  own,  boys  and  girls  will  find  that  their 
own  problems  are  being  raised  and  that  light  is  being 
thrown  upon  them. 

In  connection  with  this  study  there  may  be  made  a 
comparative  study  of  a  life  like  Booker  Washington’s, 
in  many  ways  similar  to  that  of  Moses.  What  were  the 
points  of  similarity  or  difference?  What  obstacles  did 
he  encounter  and  wherein  did  he  succeed?  What  part 
did  faith  in  God,  in  his  cause,  and  in  his  fellowmen  play 
in  his  career?  What  were  the  elements  of  strength  and 


94  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

of  weakness  in  his  character?  What  satisfactions  came 
to  him? 

The  group  needs  opportunity  also  to  formulate  similar 
ideals  on  the  basis  of  their  own  experience  and  to  put 
ideals  to  the  test.  Where  can  young  people  today  devote 
their  energies  on  behalf  of  an  oppressed  or  struggling 
group?  Let  the  class  search  for  and  discover  some  such 
enterprise  to  which  they  will  lend  their  aid.  They  may 
choose  to  support  a  colored  boy  or  girl  in  the  attempt  to 
get  an  education,  or  help  to  finance  a  kindergarten  in  a 
needy  district  of  the  city,  or  take  some  share  in  the 
struggle  against  the  evils  of  child  labor,  or  even  determine 
that  they  will  champion  the  rights  of  boys  and  girls  of 
their  own  acquaintance  who  suffer  social  ostracism  and 
ridicule — Jews,  Italians,  Mexicans,  Chinese,  Negroes. 

Another  life  that  is  rich  in  material  for  such  intensive 
study  is  that  of  David — fascinating  from  the  standpoint 
of  his ,  physical  courage  and  resourcefulness,  his  spirit 
of  honor  and  fair-play,  his  modesty,  his  reverence  for 
sacred  things,  his  loyalty  as  a  friend,  his  affection  as 
a  parent,  his  justice  and  magnanimity  as  a  ruler.  Why 
should  he  have  been  chosen  for  his  high  position?  How 
did  he  conduct  himself  during  the  difficult  period  of  Saul’s 
later  years?  What  was  the  secret  of  his  power  over  his 
companions?  How  and  why  did  he  practice  self- 
restraint?  How  did  he  bear  suspense  and  face  danger 
and  meet  disappointment  and  endure  success  ?  What  were 
his  most  serious  limitations  and  weaknesses?  What  were 
the  dominant  purposes  of  his  career?  What  were  the 
significant  choices  which  he  made,  and  under  what  cir¬ 
cumstances?  In  what  sense  was  David  a  religious  man? 
Were  the  members  of  his  race  justified  in  looking  back 
upon  him  as  the  ideal  king? 

With  this  study  as  a  background,  comparative  studies 
may  be  made  of  other  kings  of  Israel.  What  problems 
had  they  to  face?  By  what  ideals  were  they  guided? 
What  qualities  in  the  life  of  each  one  were  outstanding? 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  95 

With  these,  too,  may  be  compared  other  historic  charac¬ 
ters,  like  George  Washington  or  Abraham  Lincoln  or 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  In  what  respects  were  these  men, 
living  at  critical  periods  in  history,  like  David?  What 
made  them  attractive  to  their  fellowmen?  What  was  the 
secret  of  their  power  of  leadership?  Were  they  religious 
men  and,  if  so,  what  part  did  their  faith  play  in  their  ca¬ 
reers  ?  How  far  are  such  ideals  practicable  in  the  lives  of 
young  people  ?  In  gangs  of  boys,  what  is  it  that  boys  ad¬ 
mire  in  the  leader  of  the  gang?  Would  David  make  a 
good  leader  today?  What  problems  must  be  faced  in 
every  such  group?  Are  the  best  leaders  religious?  How 
do  they  show  it?  What  is  the  effect  on  the  life  of  the 
group?  If  conditions  in  the  gang  are  unsatisfactory  how 
far  is  this  fact  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  qualities,  or 
lack  of  them,  in  the  leader?  What  can  be  done  about  it? 

Another  type  of  character  is  represented  in  Ruth, 
whose  story  is  full  of  charm.  Her  loyalty  and  devo¬ 
tion,  her  simple  faith,  her  unwavering  purpose,  give  to 
her  character  a  rare  winsomeness.  How  are  these  ex¬ 
pressed  in  her  conduct?  How  does  Ruth  compare  with 
her  sister,  Orpah,  on  the  one  hand,  or  with  Naomi,  on 
the  other,  as  a  type  of  womanhood?  Were  her  ideals 
justified  in  the  outcome? 

Elijah  is  a  rugged  character,  attractive  for  his  lonely 
grandeur  and  moral  strength.  What  was  the  secret  of 
his  strength?  What  is  the  explanation  of  his  loneliness? 
How  explain  his  discouragement  just  at  the  moment  of 
his  greatest  triumph?  Was  something  lacking  in  his 
idealism?  or  in  his  religion?  or  was  this  reaction  simply 
due  to  physical  weariness?  If  so,  what  relation  has  one’s 
physical  condition  to  his  decisions  and  achievements? 
Where  are  the  danger  points  in  life? 

Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  may  be  studied  as  examples  of 
the  great  patriot  and  statesman.  At  what  crisis  did  they 
respond  to  the  call  for  leadership  and  how  did  the  call 
come  ?  How  did  they  find  out  what  to  do  ?  What  diffi- 


9 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

culties  had  they  to  contend  against?  What  qualities  of 
courage,  judgment,  decision,  were  required?  What  ideals 
did  they  hold  up  before  their  people?  With  what  re¬ 
sults  ? 

The  supreme  object  of  study  during  this  period  will 
be  the  life  of  Jesus,  approached  now  especially  from 
the  inner  side.  What  were  the  motives  of  Jesus?  What 
problems  confronted  Him?  Upon  what  principles  did 
He  make  decisions?  What  was  the  controlling  purpose 
of  His  life?  In  several  ways  the  Gospel  of  Luke  has 
a  special  appeal  for  young  people.  He  professes  to  have 
sifted  the  existing  traditions  concerning  Jesus  and  to  have 
preserved  an  authentic  and  orderly  record.  He  was  a 
person  full  of  human  sympathy,  as  is  evident  from  the 
character  of  the  incidents  selected  and  the  manner  of 
describing  them.  He  narrates  Jesus’  birth  and  infancy 
in  such  a  way  as  to  reveal  the  poetic  feeling  and  religious 
fervor  pervading  them.  He  preserves  the  only  references 
to  the  childhood  of  Jesus  and  especially  the  narrative  of 
the  visit  to  the  temple  and  the  questioning  of  the  learned 
scholars — a  curiosity  regarding  the  deep  problems  of  life 
quite  intelligible  to  those  who  are  themselves  just  at  the 
threshold  of  intellectual  and  religious  awakening. 

When  Jesus,  as  a  young  man  entering  upon  His  career, 
passes  through  the  deep  spiritual  struggle  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  what  motives  were  contending  for  mastery?  How 
would  one  state  them  so  as  to  be  intelligible  now?  How 
was  the  struggle  finally  decided?  How  did  He  discover 
a  life-program?  Of  what  significance  was  His  visit  just 
then  to  His  home  town?  What  did  He  try  to  tell  His 
fellow  townsmen  that  day  in  the  synagogue?  With  what 
result?  Was  Jesus  discouraged?  So  one  may  follow  on 
through  His  life,  pausing  at  each  critical  point  to  see 
how  Jesus  weighed  the  various  factors  in  His  problem, 
and  then  decided.  Why,  for  example,  did  He  choose 
disciples?  Why  did  He  spend  the  night  in  prayer  before 
choosing?  Why  did  He  talk  in  parables?  What  was 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  9 7 

He  trying  to  accomplish  at  Caesarea  Philippi  by  His  ques¬ 
tioning  of  His  disciples?  In  what  ways  did  He  resemble 
Elijah,  or  John  the  Baptist,  or  one  of  the  prophets? 
When  the  time  drew  near  for  the  final  chapter  in  His 
career,  what  must  have  been  the  feelings  of  Jesus  as  He 
thought  of  all  He  had  wished  to  achieve,  but  now  saw 
to  be  impossible?  Did  He  have  the  same  sense  of  sor¬ 
row,  of  disappointment,  of  bitterness  and  despair  which 
any  youth  with  high  purposes  and  hopes  would  feel  under 
like  circumstances,  misunderstood,  opposed,  hated,  per¬ 
secuted  by  the  very  persons  He  had  hoped  to  help,  His 
whole  career  ruined  almost  at  its  beginning?  How  could 
Jesus,  under  the  weight  of  this  burden,  keep  continually 
helpful  and  courageous?  How  could  He  keep  on  telling 
the  story  of  God’s  love;  the  story  of  the  lost  sheep,  the 
lost  coin,  the  lost  son;  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan; 
the  story  of  the  Pharisee  and  publican;  the  story  of  the 
importunate  widow?  Did  His  own  faith  never  waver, 
even  in  that  moment  on  the  Cross  when  all  had  forsaken 
Him  and  He  cried,  “My  God,  my  God,  why  has  Thou 
forsaken  me?” 

Was  the  life  of  Jesus  a  success  or  a  failure?  What 
did  He  wish  to  accomplish?  What  did  He,  in  fact ,  ac¬ 
complish  by  His  life  and  death? 

It  will  be  the  endeavor  of  the  teacher  so  to  present 
the  supreme  example  of  a  perfect  life  that  youth  will 
actually  enter  into  Jesus’  experience — His  hopes,  His 
struggles,  His  disappointments,  His  sufferings,  His 
triumphs.  The  character  of  Jesus,  by  sheer  force  of  its 
intrinsic  beauty,  should  captivate  the  imagination  of  the 
pupils  and  become  the  incarnation  of  all  youth’s  hopes 
and  longings.  The  ideals  embodied  in  that  life  should, 
become  so  clear  that  they  may  win  spontaneous  accept¬ 
ance  and  that  this  acceptance  may  find  expression  in  an 
act  of  commitment  of  the  self  to  Jesus,  as  Friend,  Ex¬ 
ample,  Saviour,  and  Lord.  This,  indeed,  is  the  very 
climax  of  the  Church’s  teaching  process. 


98  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Against  this  picture  of  the  life  of  Jesus  it  will  be  pos¬ 
sible  to  study  intensively  and  comparatively  the  careers 
of  others  who  have  lived  according  to  Jesus’  way:  lives 
of  apostles,  Peter,  John,  Paul;  lives  of  early  leaders  in 
the  church,  Origen,  Polycarp,  St.  Augustine;  lives  of 
reformers,  Luther,  Zwingli,  Huss,  Savonarola,  Calvin, 
John  Robinson;  lives  of  modern  heroes  of  the  faith,  mis¬ 
sionaries,  ministers,  physicians,  teachers,  Christian  busi¬ 
ness  men,  explorers.  Through  all  this  study  the  en¬ 
deavor  will  be  to  lead  youth  into  the  consideration  of 
the  deeper  problems  of  these  lives,  to  discover  motives, 
to  appraise  values,  to  weigh  decisions.  These,  in  turn, 
will  be  tested  in  discussion  again  and  again,  and  applied 
to  problems  of  the  group  itself  as  met  with  day  by  day. 
The  teaching  will  be  made  vivid  by  pictures  and  maps 
and  dramatization  and  analysis  of  situations.  As  the 
study  progresses,  the  young  people  will  be  encouraged  to 
think  of  themselves  as  forming  a  circle  of  disciples,  and 
to  express  the  spirit  of  the  Master  in  acts  of  service, 
as  troops  of  Scouts,  Campfire,  or  other  organization. 
They  will  seek  out  community  needs  and  will  undertake 
in  practical  ways  to  aid  the  needy  and  remove  causes  of 
suffering. 

In  their  common  worship  they  may  use  devotional 
passages  they  have  come  upon  in  their  study  of  the 
words  of  Jesus;  or  learn  and  repeat  such  choice  selec¬ 
tions  as  Paul’s  poem  on  love  in  the  letter  to  the  Corinth¬ 
ians.  Such  hymns  as  Matheson’s  “O  Love  that  wilt 
not  let  me  go,”  “O  Jesus,  thou  art  standing,”  “I  heard  the 
voice  of  Jesus  say,”  ‘'Just  as  I  am”  (Youth’s  version) 
and  Whittier’s  “We  may  not  climb  the  heavenly  steeps” 
will  fittingly  express  their  religious  feeling. 


2.  Later  Adolescence:  17TH  Year  to  Maturity 

About  90  per  cent  of  our  young  people  end  their  school 
days  before  arriving  at  high  school,  and  of  those  who 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  99 

enter  high  school  only  about  15  out  of  every  100  remain 
to  complete  the  course.  This  means  that  another  great 
change  occurs  in  the  experience  of  the  majority  of  young 
people  at  about  the  time  of  the  15th  or  16th  year.  Here¬ 
tofore  they  have  lived  at  home,  sheltered  by  parental  care 
or  guided  by  teachers  interested  in  their  personal  welfare. 
Now  they  must  fare  forth  into  the  world  of  industry  to 
find  their  own  place  in  that  world.  Hitherto  they  have 
been  wholly,  or  in  large  part,  dependent  upon  their  par¬ 
ents  for  shelter,  food,  and  clothing.  Now  they  must 
begin  to  assume  responsibility  for  self-support.  Many 
will  actually  leave  home  and  friends  and  the  familiar 
scenes  of  the  community  in  which  they  have  been  reared 
and  must  learn  to  live  among  strangers  and  to  face  new 
temptations  and  dangers.  Even  though  they  remain  at 
home,  they  will  find  that  the  shop,  the  office,  or  the  store, 
with  their  strict  regulations  and  unrelaxing  discipline, 
constitute  a  very  different  kind  of  world  from  the  home, 
the  school,  or  the  social  group  to  which  they  have  been 
accustomed.1 

This  period  is  in  many  respects  the  most  critical  of 
all.  The  sudden  rush  of  responsibility,  the  sharp  con¬ 
trast  between  the  vision  of  life  just  gained  and  the  hum¬ 
drum  routine  of  the  daily  occupation,  the  discrepancy 
between  the  ideal  to  which  one  has  just  committed  him¬ 
self  and  the  petty  annoyances  and  often  unworthy  motives 
of  the  practical  world,  the  thrill  and  excitement  of  pleas¬ 
ure  and  adventure  alternating  with  the  depression  of 
fatigue,  the  loneliness  and  discouragement  which  are  in¬ 
separable  from  the  task  of  learning  new  duties  in  a 
strange  environment,  the  incitement  to  new  and  doubtful 
pleasures  by  companions  whose  standards  are  question- 

*The  present  chapter  has  to  do  primarily  with  the  rank  and 
file  of  young  people.  Later  chapters  will  consider  the  problem 
of  the  education  of  young  people  who  are  in  institutions  of 
higher  learning  and  who  are  of  special  importance  because  of 
their  potential  leadership  and  influence. 


100  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


able — all  these  combine  and  conspire  to  produce  the  im¬ 
pression  that  life  now  in  this  new  world  of  work  is  a 
different  thing  from  what  one  has  known  before,  that 
it  is  based  upon  different  principles,  subject  to  different 
laws,  conformed  to  different  standards  and  ideals. 

All  this  tends  to  create  in  the  individual  a  divided  con¬ 
sciousness.  If  he  still  clings  to  his  earlier  ideals  and 
strives  to  maintain  his  faith  in  God,  he  will  very  likely 
be  led  to  feel  that  the  field  of  their  operation  is  limited — 
they  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  daily  business  of 
life.  Here  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  will  not  seem  to 
apply :  Sunday  and  weekday,  the  sacred  and  the  secular, 
have  little  in  common.  There  may  be  many  such  distinct 
and  unrelated  worlds,  each  with  its  own  regulative  cus¬ 
toms,  its  own  code  of  ethics:  the  world  of  business,  the 
world  of  politics,  the  world  of  the  social  pleasure-groups 
— the  club,  the  lodge,  the  amusement-hall — and  the  world 
one  still  calls  home. 

Not  only  is  there  a  tendency  to  divide  up  one’s  present 
life  into  separate,  unrelated  worlds  but  also  to  think  of 
these  as  the  most  real,  because  the  most  immediate  and 
challenging,  and,  by  contrast,  to  regard  the  past  as  out- 
of-date  and  without  significance.  Cut  off  from  home, 
cut  off  from  one’s  past,  living  intensely  in  the  vivid  and 
changeful  present,  it  is  not  strange  that  this  period  of 
youth  should  be  often  characterized  as  reckless,  incon¬ 
sistent,  impulsive,  and  irresponsible. 

Clearly,  the  business  of  the  Church  at  this  time  is  to 
seek  to  bring  about  in  the  young  person  unity  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  The  ideal  to  which  youth  has  committed  him¬ 
self  in  the  earlier  period  must  now  be  interpreted  in 
terms  of  the  new  surroundings  and  faith  must  be  put 
frankly  to  the  test  in  solving  the  new  problems.  It  will 
be  found,  of  course,  that  many  aspects  of  the  new  life 
are  out  of  harmony  with  the  ideal.  These  instances  of 
disharmony  are  opportunities  for  the  Church,  through  its 
sympathetic  teaching,  to  enlist  youth  in  some  form  of 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  ioi 


Christian  enterprise  looking  toward  the  changing  of  so¬ 
ciety  and  its  institutions  into  forms  that  are  more  Chris¬ 
tian.  The  first  approach  to  this  task  may  be  an  attempt 
to  develop  a  Christian  attitude  toward  the  world  in 
general — an  attitude  of  service  rather  than  of  self-seeking. 
From  this  point  of  view,  vocation  is  an  opportunity  not 
merely  for  personal  advantage  or  advancement,  but  for 
making  a  personal  contribution  to  the  common  welfare. 
This  opens  the  way  for  vocational  guidance,  for  placing 
at  the  disposal  of  youth  the  Christian  experience  of  the 
Church,  helping  them  to  avoid  on  the  one  hand  the 
tragedy  of  the  “blind  alley”  and  on  the  other  hand  to 
choose  the  vocation  for  which  they  are  best  fitted  by 
native  talent  and  education  and  the  one  which  offers 
the  largest  field  both  for  useful  service  and  reasonable 
return  in  legitimate  satisfactions. 

The  Church  needs  to  help  also  in  the  solving  of  prob¬ 
lems  which  arise  in  connection  with  this  transition  to  a 
life  of  industry.  There  is  need  for  a  Christian  motive; 
there  is  also  need  for  wisdom  in  meeting  the  unexpected 
strains  of  a  new  position.  The  uses  of  time  and  of 
money,  the  relation  of  recreation  to  health  and  happiness, 
the  choice  of  companions,  the  establishment  of  proper 
attitudes  towards  employers,  fellow-workers,  the  opposite 
sex,  the  community  at  large,  the  State,  the  world,  these 
are  now  vital  questions.  Many  of  these  problems  will 
best  be  met  by  an  objective  study  of  society,  its  structure 
and  its  institutions,  as  they  arise  out  of  the  very  variety 
of  standards  which  are  current  in  every  community. 
The  method  of  study  may  be  partly  historical,  for  it  will 
be  a  great  help  to  find  that  there  is  a  direct  causal  con¬ 
nection  between  the  world  as  we  know  it,  its  institutions 
and  its  social  habits,  and  the  world  of  yesterday.  Many 
of  these  institutions  and  habits  are  the  outcome  of  a  long 
social  evolution.  If  we  would  know  whither  society  is 
tending  we  must  know  whence  it  has  come.  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  history  presents  a  picture  of  social  development 


1 02  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

from  very  primitive  beginnings  to  a  highly  complex  state, 
and  a  development  in  which  the  religious  motive  was 
strong.  The  history  of  New  Testament  times  and  of  the 
Christian  Church  reveals  the  conflict  of  selfish  with  un¬ 
selfish  motive  and  the  progress  of  civilization  toward  the 
Christian  ideal  for  society.  Properly  taught,  these  sub¬ 
jects  may  be  tremendously  helpful  to  the  young  person, 
enabling  him  to  understand  that  many  of  the  defects  of 
society  are  due  to  the  influence  of  unchristian  motives 
and  the  blind  conflict  of  selfish  interests  which  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  and  the  Christian  Church  are  striving  to 
supersede.  At  the  same  time,  history  offers  ground  for 
confidence  in  the  possibility  of  resistance  and  struggle 
against  obstacles  which  seem,  at  first  thought,  insur¬ 
mountable.  But  the  teaching  of  history  for  this  end  must 
be  no  mere  recital  or  memorization  of  facts.  It  must  be, 
from  first  to  last,  an  interpretation  of  life  and  of  the 
working  of  the  religious  motive  in  society. 

One  may  take,  for  example,  the  earlier  period  of  He¬ 
brew  history  prior  to  the  establishment  of  the  monarchy 
under  King  David.  What  were  the  characteristic  fea¬ 
tures  of  social  life  in  the  comparatively  primitive  stage 
represented  in  the  book  of  Judges,  or  more  dimly  pic¬ 
tured  in  Genesis  and  Exodus?  Here  we  have  a  nomadic 
clan,  with  its  family  interpretation  of  everything  per¬ 
taining  to  social  relations — a  relatively  simple  form  of 
social  organization,  yet  possessing  in  embryo  many  of  the 
structures  necessary  for  a  more  complex  social  order. 
Let  the  various  aspects  of  such  a  simple  brotherhood  be 
discussed  in  all  their  bearings  until  young  people  come  to 
feel  that  they  understand  not  only  what  the  conditions 
were  but  why  they  were.  In  process  of  time,  the  Hebrew 
nation  came  into  existence.  What  were  the  forces  that 
brought  about  this  change  from  a  nomadic  clan-society 
to  a  settled  agricultural,  village-and-peasant  society? 
What  changes  had  to  take  place  during  the  transition? 
What  was  the  effect  upon  the  rights  of  the  individual, 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  103 

upon  his  economic  welfare,  upon  the  methods  of  admin¬ 
istering  justice  and  upon  the  standards  of  justice,  upon  the 
idea  of  God  and  the  methods  of  worship,  upon  the  attitude 
toward  responsibility  and  duty,  upon  the  conception  of 
the  meaning  of  life,  upon  the  willingness  to  cooperate? 
Here  are  problems  of  fundamental  importance,  involving 
questions  of  value  and  standards  of  life,  questions  of 
faith  and  morals,  temptations  and  choice,  that  are  closely 
akin  to  those  which  young  people  themselves  must  meet 
in  their  transition  from  a  family  atmosphere  to  the  life 
of  the  work-a-day  world  and  the  more  complex  social 
relationships. 

In  such  an  approach  to  history  there  is  splendid  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  study  of  the  place  and  influence  of  the  prophet, 
as  a  preacher  of  righteousness,  as  a  stimulator  of  con¬ 
science,  as  a  leader  of  men,  and  as  a  statesman.  Where 
did  he  get  his  message?  How  did  he  endeavor  to  win 
attention  for  it?  Why  did  he  take  the  positions  he  as¬ 
sumed,  often  in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  authorities? 
What  values  did  he  seek  to  conserve?  Are  the  prophets 
to  be  classed  as  “conservatives”  or  “radicals,”  as  “reac¬ 
tionaries”  or  “progressives”  or  “insurgents”?  To  what 
motives  did  they  appeal?  What  were  their  more  impor¬ 
tant  teachings?  And  what  permanent  results  followed 
their  activity? 

In  a  similar  way  the  thinkers  of  Israel  may  be  studied, 
the  “wise  men,”  the  “sages,”  as  they  grappled  with  the 
broader  philosophical  or  theological  problems  of  their 
time.  There  was,  for  instance,  the  problem  of  God’s  re¬ 
lation  to  His  world.  For  such  study  compare  the  ancient 
mythology  of  Babylonia  with  the  accounts  of  Creation  in 
Genesis,  and  with  nature  passages  in  the  Psalms.  What 
does  life  mean,  is  life  worth  living?  This  problem  is 
discussed  in  Ecclesiastes.  The  book  of  Job  presents  a 
compendium  of  rival  theories  as  to  the  meaning  of  suffer¬ 
ing.  The  book  of  Jonah  may  form  the  basis  for  an  appeal 


104  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

to  the  conscience  for  a  wider  sense  of  responsibility  to  all 
mankind. 

Again,  take  the  development  of  the  priestly  function 
and  office  in  Israel.  From  one  point  of  view,  this  may 
seem  highly  formal,  mechanical,  dead,  uninteresting. 
From  another  point  of  view,  it  reveals  the  struggle  for 
communion  with  God,  through  symbol  and  sacrifice, 
through  worship  and  song.  What  a  variety  of  moods  is 
reflected  in  the  Hebrew  hymn  book,  and  what  a  rich  ex¬ 
pression  of  religious  emotion.  One  cannot  study  this 
literature,  from  the  formal,  legal  phraseology  of  Leviticus 
to  the  highly  symbolic  language  of  Ezekiel,  without  feeling 
stirred  to  appreciation  of  the  religious  passion  of  the 
Hebrew  race  and  their  determined  struggle  to  interpret 
the  whole  of  life  in  religious  terms.  On  the  other  hand, 
one  cannot  make  this  study,  even  in  a  superficial  way, 
without  realizing  how  constant  and  how  deadly  is  the 
tendency  for  what  was  once  vital  and  vivid  experience  to 
degenerate  into  mechanical  and  formal  repetition. 

Turning  to  the  New  Testament,  we  find  Jesus  first 
making  His  public  appearance  as  an  adherent  of  John  the 
Baptist,  the  advocate  of  a  new  order,  “the  Kingdom  of 
God/'  to  which  Jesus  committed  Himself.  While  He  gave 
Himself  freely  to  the  relief  of  those  who  were  suffering 
from  the  injustices,  maladies,  and  sins  inherent  in  the  old 
order,  His  real  contribution  was  in  teaching  and  illustrat¬ 
ing  the  great  principles  upon  which  the  new  order  must 
rest.  He  must  correct  current  misconceptions,  disclose 
larger  ideals,  awaken  men’s  minds  to  new  and  more 
permanent  satisfactions ;  in  other  words,  interpret  the  new 
order — so  far  as  possible — in  terms  of  current  thinking. 
What  was  the  Kingdom  of  God  like?  How’  could  one  get 
into  it?  Why  did  it  seem  so  slow  of  realization?  What 
was  to  be  its  destiny?  How  were  its  laws  to  be  related 
to  present  accepted  rules  of  living?  What  was  Jesus’ 
relation  to  the  Kingdom  ?  Who  should  be  greatest  in  the 
Kingdom?  These  and  similar  questions  filled  the  minds 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  105 

of  men  in  His  day.  The  Gospels  reveal  to  us  the  manner 
in  which  Jesus  made  answer  not  in  words  only  but  in  the 
more  convincing  witness  of  His  life,  so  that  through  Him 
we  learn  what  love  is,  what  service  involves,  what  sacrifice 
means,  what  God  Himself  is  like. 

As  a  result  of  such  intensive  study  of  the  Gospels — 
including  now  the  Gospel  of  John  which  attempts  to  give 
us  a  philosophy  of  Jesus — the  Church  may  reasonably 
expect  that  young  people  will  follow  His  example  and 
commit  their  lives  to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  as  a  Cause 
demanding  their  loyal  devotion  and  life-service. 

The  life  and  letters  of  Paul  tell  the  story  of  one  who 
thus  committed  himself  to  the  Cause  of  Christ  and  gave 
his  life  to  organizing  his  followers  into  a  company, 
“Church,”  or  social  group  to  promote  that  Cause  through¬ 
out  the  world.  The  necessity  for  organization,  the  re¬ 
quirements  for  membership,  the  qualifications  and  duties 
of  officers,  the  severe  standards  and  tests  of  character,  the 
questions  as  to  the  mutual  relationships  of  members  within 
the  group,  and  between  these  members  and  others  in  the 
same  community,  the  responsibility  for  those  far  away 
and  for  the  world  in  general;  personal  problems — what 
attitude  to  assume  toward  prevalent  customs,  what  stand¬ 
ards  of  family  and  business  life  to  maintain,  how  to  meet 
trial,  persecution,  suffering,  death,  how  to  meet  tempta¬ 
tion,  how  to  keep  joyous  and  buoyant  under  the  strain  of 
hope  deferred — these  and  many  other  personal  and  social 
problems  are  illuminated  in  the  literature  of  the  apostolic 
age.  A  study  of  such  problems  will  correct  many  a  false 
notion  regarding  the  nature  and  purpose  of  the  Church 
and  lay  the  basis  for  a  Christian  philosophy  of  life. 

Not  all  social  problems  were  solved  in  the  apostolic  age. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  the  new  teaching  vast  social  changes 
began  to  take  place ;  the  Romanization  of  the  Church,  the 
stifling  of  its  very  life  under  the  machinery  of  organiza¬ 
tion,  the  bursting  of  its  bonds  as  a  result  of  the  liberalizing 
influence  of  learning,  the  new  spirit  which  came  in  at  the 


TO 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Reformation,  the  migration  of  Pilgrim,  Puritan,  and 
Huguenot,  the  building  of  a  new  nation,  a  democracy, 
the  American  commonwealth.  From  such  study  we  may 
learn,  better  than  from  any  other  sources,  the  real  meaning 
of  democracy.  What  is  the  source  and  character  of 
American  ideals  ?  What  does  democracy  mean  in 
America?  Is  it,  on  the  whole,  the  Christian  conception 
of  society? 

The  meaning  of  these  principles  must  be  worked  out 
by  the  young  people  themselves,  in  the  light  of  their  own 
experience.  They  will  be  aided  in  this  by  their  religious 
teachers,  but  the  assistance  given  will  be  in  the  line  of 
suggestion  and  leadership  rather  than  by  dogmatic  or 
even  systematic  indoctrination.  The  aim  will  be,  of 
course,  to  help  them  acquire  a  system  of  Christian  doc¬ 
trine,  a  working  philosophy  of  life,  but  the  method  will  be 
that  of  the  laboratory,  an  inductive  study  of  society  itself 
by  investigation,  survey,  and  discussion  of  findings.  Such 
surveys  will  include  a  study  of  the  institutions  common  to 
every  community — homes,  shops,  stores,  schools,  libraries, 
places  of  amusement,  churches.  It  will  be  a  critical  study, 
endeavoring  to  face  frankly  conditions  which  are  not 
consistent  with  the  Christian  standard.  But  it  will  be 
also  a  constructive  study  seeking  to  discover  means  and 
methods  whereby  the  defects  in  present  society  may  be 
corrected. 

As  young  people  work  together,  in  close  touch  with 
Christian  ideals  on  the  one  hand  and  with  actual  social 
conditions  on  the  other,  convictions  will  be  forming  con¬ 
cerning  the  desirable  standards  of  a  Christian  society — • 
convictions  concerning  family  life,  concerning  business 
and  commercial  relationships,  concerning  community  edu¬ 
cation  and  cooperation,  concerning  the  Church  and  its 
mission.  As  they  work  together,  experimentally,  they  will 
be  gaining  the  best  possible  introduction  not  only  to 
society  but  to  the  Church  itself.  As  they  study  the 
history  of  social  progress  they  will  be  discovering  various 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  YOUTH  107 

movements  or  causes  with  some  one  or  more  of  which 
they  may  identify  themselves.  In  other  words,  the  ideal, 
which  in  the  earlier  period  assumed  form  a$  a  possible 
personal  self,  has  now  been  more  widely  interpreted  in 
terms  of  a  personal  relation  of  the  self  to  society. 

The  climax  of  the  Church’s  teaching  work  at  this  stage 
will  be  the  presentation  of  a  picture  of  ideal  society  and 
social  relationships  against  this  background  of  personal 
and  race  experience  and  philosophy  of  life.  What  is  the 
basis  of  such  a  society?  What  institutions  are  funda¬ 
mental  to  its  welfare?  At  what  points  does  society,  as 
we  know  it,  fall  short  of  the  ideal?  By  what  means  and 
methods  can  it  be  brought  closer  to  the  ideal?  How 
widely  does  one’s  social  responsibility  extend?  And  how 
may  those  who  are  actuated  by  Christian  motives  be 
brought  into  most  effective  cooperation  ?  This,  of  course, 
is  simply  to  say  that  the  great,  all-comprehending  enter¬ 
prise  of  the  Church  is  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  that  its 
all-inclusive  problem  is  to  bring  to  men  a  vision  of  the 
Kingdom  and  to  arouse  in  them  a  purpose  to  strive  co¬ 
operatively  for  its  realization. 


CHAPTER  V 


TEACHING  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO 
THE  MODERN  MAN 

Throughout  our  study  of  childhood  and  youth  we 
have  been  insisting  that  education  must  be  vitally  related 
to  the  environment — physical,  mental,  and  social — in 
which  the  lives  of  the  scholars  are  lived.  To  the  educa¬ 
tion  of  the  adult,  now  to  be  considered,  the  same  principle 
applies.  We  have  to  take  into  account  the  present- 
day  influences,  growing  out  of  the  state  of  society  as  a 
whole,  in  which  modern  men  and  women  are  placed  and 
do  their  work.  These  influences,  all  too  often  over¬ 
looked,  deeply  concern  the  Christian  Church,  both  because 
they  directly  affect  those  who  are  under  its  influence  and 
also  because  they  create  new  groups  to  whom  it  has  a 
responsibility  and  whom  it  cannot  really  help  except  as  it 
enters  into  the  world  in  which  they  are  living  and  under¬ 
stands  the  forces  which  have  shaped  their  attitudes  and 
thought.  In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  take  for  granted 
many  generally  accepted  phases  of  the  work  of  the  Church 
in  fostering  the  moral  and  spiritual  growth  of  adults  and 
direct  our  attention  to  more  neglected  considerations. 

i.  The  Social  Environment  of  the  Modern  Man 

Among  the  forces  which  have  a  determinative  effect  on 
modern  life  we  may  mention  four  as  of  special  importance 
for  our  present  purpose:  (a)  the  development  of  science 
and  invention,  with  the  resulting  mastery  of  nature;  (b) 
the  growth  of  economic  and  social  interdependence;  (c) 
the  quest  of  moral  and  political  democracy;  (d)  the 
divisive  influence  of  race  and  nationality. 

108 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  109 

(a)  The  Development  of  Science  and  the  Mastery  of 
Nature . — In  a  previous  chapter  we  have  had  occasion  to 
consider  some  of  the  indirect  effects  of  the  scientific 
movement  upon  religion,  in  the  creation  of  a  secular 
system  of  education  from  which  the  teaching  of  religion 
is  wholly  or  in  part  banished.  But  there  are  other  and 
more  direct  ways  in  which  science  affects  the  environment 
of  the  Church’s  teaching.  In  three  ways  in  particular 
this  influence  appears  :  in  creating  a  new  attitude  of  mind 
toward  authority  in  all  its  forms,  both  religious  and  secu¬ 
lar;  in  bringing  into  existence  a  new  body  of  knowledge 
which  at  some  points  renders  necessary  a  readjustment  of 
the  Church’s  teaching;  and  in  changing  the  physical  en¬ 
vironment  of  men  by  putting  into  their  hands  greatly 
enlarged  powers  over  nature. 

More  important  than  any  changes  in  specific  beliefs  is 
the  change  brought  about  by  modern  science  in  men’s 
attitude  of  mind.  For  the  older  attitude  of  unquestioning 
belief  it  has  substituted  the  critical  spirit.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  multitudes  of  men  who  have  not  yet  felt  this 
change  to  any  appreciable  extent.  It  is  further  true  that 
not  a  few  who  have  experienced  it  in  the  rest  of  their 
intellectual  life,  have  yet  managed  to  retain  unimpaired 
their  old  attitude  of  unquestioning  submission  in  matters 
of  religion.  Nevertheless,  for  very  large  numbers  of 
persons  both  in  the  Church  and  outside,  what  we  call 
the  scientific  spirit  has  become  their  familiar  mental  habit. 
They  have  become  accustomed  to  asking  for  the  reasons 
for  their  beliefs.  They  are  distrustful  of  all  external 
authority,  however  ancient  and  responsible,  and  they  see 
no  reason  why  in  the  case  of  religion,  the  most  important 
of  all  human  interests,  they  should  depart  from  a  method 
which  has  so  clearly  proved  its  usefulness  in  other  realms 
of  knowledge. 

Anyone  who  plans  an  educational  program  for  the 
Church  must  take  account  of  this  situation.  Those  who 
are  influenced  by  the  scientific  spirit  must  be  approached 


no  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


by  methods  different  from  those  which  were  efficacious 
with  people  who  lived  before  the  era  of  modern  science. 

Modern  science  has  not  only  created  a  new  attitude  of 
mind  but  has  also  brought  into  existence  a  body  of  knowl¬ 
edge  which  was  not  available  when  the  older  textbooks 
of  religion  were  written.  In  the  case  of  the  physical 
sciences,  the  existence  of  this  body  of  knowledge  is  gen¬ 
erally  recognized.  No  one  who  visits  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  and  sees  the  record  of  life 
as  it  is  retold  for  him  in  the  story  of  the  species  that  pre¬ 
ceded  man,  can  approach  the  study  of  the  Bible  with  the 
presuppositions  of  the  commentators  who  lived  before 
Darwin  was  born  or  the  theory  of  evolution  had  become 
familiar  to  every  schoolboy.  In  other  fields  also  far- 
reaching  changes  have  taken  place.  In  all  the  studies  that 
are  concerned  with  man’s  spiritual  history  there  has  been 
notable  activity.  The  history  of  religion  has  been  re¬ 
studied  in  the  light  of  archaeology  and  ethnology,  and  new 
material  made  accessible  which  older  commentators  did 
not  possess.  The  Bible  has  been  subjected  to  intense  and 
critical  study,  with  the  result  that  most  scholars  believe 
that  it  has  had  a  longer  history  and  a  more  composite 
authorship  than  our  fathers  supposed.  The  history  of  the 
Christian  Church  and  of  its  institutions  has  been  rewrit¬ 
ten.  Other  faiths  have  been  made  familiar  to  us  by  the 
science  of  comparative  religion.  New  sciences,  like  the 
psychology  of  religion,  have  been  born  and  have  devel¬ 
oped  a  vigorous  life,  and  multitudes  of  people  who  have 
never  thought  of  reading  a  theological  treatise  have  found 
inspiration  and  stimulus  in  such  a  book  as  William  James’ 
“Varieties  of  Religious  Experience.”  It  is  not  a  question 
whether  we  approve  or  disapprove  these  developments. 
The  fact  is  that  they  have  occurred  and  that  we  must 
shape  our  educational  program  accordingly. 

The  most  revolutionary  of  all  the  changes  brought  about 
by  modern  science  is  in  the  external  environment  in  which 
the  people  who  are  to  be  taught  are  living.  Science  has 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  m 


so  marvelously  increased  our  powers  over  nature  that  one 
man  can  do  with  steam  and  electricity  what  a  thousand 
men  together  could  not  have  done  a  century  ago.  As  a 
result  vast  changes  have  taken  place  in  the  habits  of  men 
and  in  their  mental  horizon.  Space  has  been  annihilated. 
Knowledge,  or  what  passes  as  such,  is  made  common 
property  by  the  daily  press.  Great  industries  have  arisen, 
made  possible  by  the  factory  system  with  its  large-scale 
production.  Wealth  has  been  multiplied  and  widely  dis¬ 
tributed,  but,  side  by  side  with  this  increase  in  general 
comfort,  great  fortunes  have  been  accumulated  in  the 
hands  of  a  little  group  of  men,  whose  power  to  affect  the 
destiny  of  their  fellows  has  been  enormously  increased. 

Witnessing  these  amazing  transformations,  men  have 
come  to  think  of  science  as  a  sort  of  modern  wizard,  mak¬ 
ing  all  things  possible,  and  the  moral  limitations  of  power, 
pure  and  simple,  have  been  for  the  time  obscured.  These 
limitations  the  war  has  set  in  clearer  light.  Viewing  the 
results  of  the  application  of  scientific  methods  to  warfare 
we  see  that  science  as  such  is  merely  neutral.  By  enlarg¬ 
ing  our  knowledge  it  has  increased  our  power,  but  whether 
that  power  is  to  be  used  for  good  or  ill,  for  the  destruction 
or  for  the  advancement  of  mankind,  remains  yet  to 
be  decided  and  is  an  inescapable  problem  for  religion. 

(b)  Growth  of  Economic  and  Social  Interdependence. 
— A  second  factor  of  which  the  modern  Christian  educa¬ 
tor  must  take  account  is  a  result  of  the  transformation 
thus  briefly  described,  namely,  the  almost  incredible 
growth  of  social  and  economic  interdependence.  This  is 
a  fact  which  is  forced  upon  us  by  the  most  familiar 
happenings  of  every  day,  but  to  whose  moral  and  spiritual 
significance  we  have  not  yet  given  the  thought  it  deserves. 

The  most  impressive  illustration  of  this  interdependence 
is  the  modern  industrial  system.  This  has  bound  the’ 
peoples  of  the  world  together  in  an  intricate  mechanism  of 
commerce,  every  dislocation  of  which  produces  disturbing 


1 12  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


effects  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  A  hundred  years 
ago,  indeed  much  later  than  this,  it  was  possible  for  a 
family  living  on  the  soil  in  almost  every  country  to  be, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  economically  independent.  Now 
economic  independence  is  a  wholly  impossible  thing. 
The  food  we  eat,  the  clothes  we  wear,  the  houses  we  live 
in,  are  provided  for  us  by  others,  and  those  who  thus 
cooperate  in  our  support  live  literally  at  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  With  the  growth  of  modern  industry  specialization 
in  labor  goes  on  with  ever-increasing  intensity,  and  with 
specialization  a  corresponding  increase  in  insecurity  of 
employment.  When  each  man  is  able  to  do  only  a  single 
thing,  and  that  as  part  of  a  large  machine  which  he  neither 
owns  nor  controls,  he  is  helpless  when  for  any  reason  the 
machine  stops  and  no  longer  demands  his  services.  He 
can  no  longer  stay  where  he  is  and  support  himself  by 
doing  something  else.  If  he  is  to  find  work  he  must  go 
where  work  is,  and  this  produces  a  constant  shifting  of 
population  which  breaks  up  home  life  and  has  all  manner 
of  other  unfortunate  spiritual  consequences. 

The  most  serious  of  these  for  our  present  purpose  is 
the  change  of  spiritual  attitude  on  the  part  of  large  masses 
of  the  people.  Instead  of  feeling  their  responsibility  to 
the  place  where  they  live  or  to  the  community  as  a  whole, 
they  acquire  a  spiritual  aloofness  which  corresponds  to 
their  physical  detachment.  Their  allegiance  is  not  pri¬ 
marily  to  their  own  country  or  state,  but  to  their  fellow- 
workmen  with  whom  they  share  their  daily  toil  and  in 
cooperation  with  whom  alone  they  see  any  possibility  of 
social  betterment.  So  a  class  consciousness  arises  which 
sets  labor  against  capital  and  often  limits  the  application 
of  the  Christian  principle  of  universal  brotherhood  to 
those  of  one’s  own  class.  And  this  class  consciousness 
is  by  no  means  confined  to  those  who  are  in  the  ranks  of 
labor.  Employers  generally  act  as  a  group  in  regarding 
the  present  system  of  control  of  industry  as  the  only  right 
one  and  in  resenting  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  wage 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  113 

earners  to  limit  the  employer’s  control  of  his  business  as 
he  alone  sees  fit.  To  modern  capitalism,  labor  is  a  com¬ 
modity  like  coal  or  iron,  to  be  bought  in  the  cheapest 
market  and  discarded  when  its  usefulness  is  exhausted. 
So  men  who  are  charitable  and  considerate  to  individuals 
in  need  become  callous  to  the  sufferings  of  men  in  the 
mass  and  regard  any  effort  to  change  the  present  industrial 
system  as  an  attack  upon  fundamental  rights  to  be  opposed 
to  the  uttermost. 

The  effect  of  this  attitude  on  the  part  of  employers  and 
workers  and  the  public  is  to  carry  the  war-spirit  into 
industry.  Competition  up  to  the  limits  set  by  law  is 
regarded  as  the  normal  law  of  business  life,  and  any  in¬ 
sistence  that  industry  make  earnest  with  the  Christian 
ideals  of  cooperation  and  service  is  regarded  as  mixing 
two  things  that  have  to  be  kept  apart.  This  state  of 
things  affects  the  Christian  educator  vitally.  It  makes  it 
difficult  for  him  to  reach  the  ranks  of  organized  labor 
directly,  at  least  that  part  of  it  which  has  become  class 
conscious,  because  they  tend  to  think  of  the  Church  as  a 
part  of  the  existing  order,  defending  things  as  they  are. 
Even  more  serious  is  the  fact  that  the  atmosphere  of 
strife  creates  a  spiritual  attitude  which  makes  it  more 
difficult  everywhere  to  secure  the  acceptance  of  the 
Christian  message,  and,  even  when  that  message  is  ac¬ 
cepted,  faces  us  with  problems  of  practical  application 
hard  to  solve  but  impossible  to  ignore. 

(c)  The  Quest  of  Moral  and  Political  Democracy. — 
A  third  factor  in  the  life  of  our  time,  of  which  the  Chris¬ 
tian  educator  must  take  account,  is  the  increasing  number 
of  men  and  women  in  all  walks  of  life  who  insist  on  their 
right  to  be  consulted  as  to  the  conditions  of  their  own 
lives.  We  speak  of  our  age  as  a  democratic  age,  and  by 
this  we  ordinarily  refer  to  the  political  changes  which  are 
taking  place  in  the  forms  of  the  world’s  government — the 
growing  increase  in  the  power  of  the  people  over  their  rep- 


1 14  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

resentatives,  the  passing  of  monarchies,  the  birth  of  new 
democracies,  the  trying  of  new  and  radical  experiments 
in  government.  But  the  phenomenon  in  question  is  much 
more  widespread  than  this.  It  meets  us  wherever  men 
have  to  live  and  work  together,  in  industry  and  in  educa¬ 
tion,  for  example,  quite  as  much  as  in  politics.  Every¬ 
where  we  find  an  increasing  demand  for  freedom,  side  by 
side  with  an  increased  need  for  centralized  and  effective 
government.  And  this  affects  not  only  the  conduct  of 
men,  but  more  and  more  their  spiritual  attitude.  A  fa¬ 
miliar  illustration  meets  us  in  the  world  of  industry.  In 
the  contest  between  capital  and  labor  the  real  issue  is 
rarely  simply  a  matter  of  hours  or  of  wages,  but  rather 
of  the  method  by  which  the  industry  shall  be  controlled. 
The  workers  are  insistent  that  they  shall  have  a  share  in 
the  management  as  well  as  in  the  rewards  of  industry,  and 
the  increasing  recognition  of  the  reasonableness  of  this 
desire  is  an  impressive  evidence  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  democratic  spirit  is  making  its  presence  felt. 

What  is  true  in  industry  is  true  also  in  education. 
Here,  too,  the  present  tendency  is  to  replace  the  older 
autocratic  and  dogmatic  methods  of  instruction  with  a 
method  in  which  the  pupil  is  made  responsible  in  part 
for  his  own  educational  development.  The  elective  sys¬ 
tem,  the  wide  use  of  the  laboratory,  and  the  emphasis  on 
the  project  method  are  only  a  few  among  many  indica¬ 
tions  of  this  changed  point  of  view.  In  considering  the 
significance  of  this  new  democratic  emphasis  for  religious 
education  it  is  important  to  remember  that  we  are  not 
dealing  simply  with  an  educational  problem  as  such,  but 
with  the  application  to  religion  and  education  of  a  human 
problem  of  far-reaching  significance. 

The  quest  of  political  and  moral  democracy  is  not  a 
phenomenon  confined  to  Europe  and  America  alone.  It 
is  world  wide,  meeting  us  as  impressively  in  China  and 
India  as  in  countries  nearer  home.  All  over  the  world 
we  find  individuals  and  whole  nations  asserting  their  right 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  115 

to  self-determination  and  self-control.  And  here  we  meet 
another  disturbing  fact  that  sets  a  grave  problem  for  the 
teacher  of  religion,  the  deep-rooted  rivalry  between  aspir¬ 
ing  groups  separated  by  differences  of  race  and  of 
nationality. 

(d)  The  Factors  of  Race  and  of  Nationality. — In  the 
problem  of  the  relation  of  the  white  people  and  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Negro  we  see  an  outstanding  example  of  the  difficul¬ 
ties  raised  by  racial  differences.  Here  is  a  group  of 
nearly  ten  million  people  who  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  are 
entitled  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  American  citi¬ 
zenship,  yet  who  for  all  practical  purposes  are  separated 
from  their  fellow  Americans  of  white  skin  by  an  impass¬ 
able  gulf.  They  may  not  inter-mar ry  with  them ;  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  they  may  not  travel  with  them;  and 
what  is  still  more  significant,  they  may  not  study  with 
them ;  they  may  not  even  worship  with  them.  They  have 
their  own  industries,  their  own  schools,  their  own 
churches.  Yet  to  our  Christian  faith  they  are  our 
brother-men  for  whom  Christ  died,  and  with  us  heirs  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  Among  the  persons  to  be  included 
in  the  Church’s  program  of  religious  education  are  these 
ten  million  potential  Christians,  and  among  the  subjects 
to  be  taught  to  black  and  white  alike  are  the  Christian 
principles  which  should  determine  the  relation  between 
the  two  races. 

Another  factor  which  intensifies  the  problem  of  race  is 
the  difference  in  language.  Among  the  immigrants  who 
for  the  last  generation  have  been  pouring  into  this  country 
are  multitudes  who  do  not  speak  English  and  who  even 
after  years  of  residence  here  still  retain  the  tongue  of  the 
lands  which  gave  them  birth.  The  last  figures  of  the 
United  States’  census  report  the  fact  that  about  eleven 
million  Christians  in  this  country  belong  to  Churches 
which  conduct  their  services  in  whole  or  in  part  in 
languages  other  than  English.  Still  further  difficulties  are 


ii 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


introduced  in  the  case  of  those  who  come  to  us  from 
countries  which  may  have  political  differences  with  the 
United  States,  and  who  still  retain  their  affection  for  the 
land  of  their  birth.  Illustrations  in  the  public  eye  today 
are  the  Japanese  on  the  west  coast  and  the  Mexicans  pour¬ 
ing  over  the’ southern  boundary  into  Texas  and  the  neigh¬ 
boring  states.  All  these  factors  of  alien  race,  alien  speech, 
and  conflicting  loyalties  present  a  set  of  almost  over¬ 
whelming  problems  in  carrying  out  what  is  at  once  an 
educational  and  a  missionary  enterprise  for  the  Church 
in  America. 

When  we  pass  from  our  own  country  altogether  and 
begin  to  study  the  wider  field  of  world  politics,  we  find 
race  rivalry  everywhere  on  the  horizon.  The  contention 
between  Japan  and  China,  between  Korea  and  Japan,  be¬ 
tween  Greeks  and  Turks,  Turks  and  Armenians,  Magyars 
and  Czechoslovaks,  Germans  and  Poles — these  are  but  a 
few  of  a  multitude  of  illustrations  which  might  be  given. 
Rivalries  of  race  are  complicated  by  the  further  fact  of 
nationality.  Intense  loyalty  to  the  national  group,  sus¬ 
picion  and  distrust  of  other  nations,  economic  rivalries  to 
secure  access  to  natural  resources  and  markets,  all  the 
familiar  aspects  of  modern  international  life  which  found 
their  culmination  in  the  slaughter  of  ten  million  young 
men  in  a  single  war,  followed  by  conditions  of  peace  that 
seem  to  be  rapidly  breeding  future  wars,  give  us  a  world 
in  which  the  Christian  ideal  of  the  unity  of  mankind, 
which  underlies  the  whole  foreign  missionary  program 
of  the  Church,  seems  only  hollow  mockery. 

To  work  for  the  Christian  ideal  for  society  with  any 
hope  of  success  we  must  understand  the  obstacles  to  which 
it  is  exposed.  Included,  therefore,  in  any  adequate  pro¬ 
gram  of  Christian  education  for  modern  men  and  women 
must  be  a  study  of  the  present-day  facts  of  class,  race,  and 
nationality,  the  meaning  of  Christianity  for  these  great 
phases  of  our  social  life  and  the  ways  in  which  Christian 
influences  can  be  effectively  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  n 7 


2.  Consequences  for  the  Educational  Task  of  the 
Church 

In  the  present  attitude  of  suspicion  and  fear  between 
class  and  class,  nation  and  nation,  race  and  race,  with  the 
substitution  of  lesser  loyalties  for  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
there  is  no  hope  for  modern  civilization.  To  persuade 
men  that  there  is  a  better  way  of  life  and  to  create  in  them 
the  will  to  follow  it,  is  the  task  of  Christian  education. 

What  is  needed  to  hold  the  world  together  is  religion, 
not  some  vague  religion  of  aspiration  and  good-will  born 
yesterday  and  untested  by  experience,  but  one  which  is 
rooted  in  deep-seated  convictions  concerning  the  nature  of 
God  and  His  plan  for  the  universe.  Without  such  a 
unifying  faith  in  a  beneficent  Purpose  for  the  world,  it 
is  hopeless  to  expect  the  social  salvation  for  which  we 
long.  This  unifying  faith  comes  to  us  through  Jesus 
Christ.  Here  is  the  one  possible  integrating  force  for 
modern  democracy.  It  is  the  responsibility  of  the  Church 
to  show  convincingly  that  this  is  so.  In  order  to  accom¬ 
plish  this  she  must,  in  the  first  place,  interpret  to  her  own 
people  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  for  the  perplexing  situa¬ 
tions  in  the  modern  world  in  which  they  live,  and,  in  the 
second  place,  present  the  Gospel  to  those  now  outside  the 
Church’s  influence  in  such  a  compelling  fashion  as  to 
win  them  to  allegiance  to  Christ  and  His  way  of  life. 

(a)  The  Church  as  Interpreter  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
Growing  Christian. — In  order  that  the  Church  may  be 
able  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  to  her  own 
people  so  that  they  shall  be  able  to  play  their  part  worthily 
as  Christians  in  the  concrete  situations  which  they  daily 
face,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  take  account  of  two  different 
groups  of  problems,  independent  but  closely  related. 
There  are,  first,  the  problems  which  are  concerned  with 
the  fundamental  convictions  in  which  the  Christian  ethical 
ideal  is  rooted,  and,  secondly,  those  which  have  to  do  with 


ii8  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  application  of  the  ethical  ideal  of  Christianity  to 
baffling  conditions  of  modern  life. 

Even  in  the  comparatively  simple  task  of  holding  up  the 
fundamental  Christian  convictions  the  environment  in 
which  his  teaching  must  be  done  sets  the  Christian  teacher 
peculiar  problems.  He  must  interpret  the  nature  of  Chris¬ 
tian  faith  to  men  who  have  been  brought  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  scientific  spirit,  and  this  influence  acts  differ¬ 
ently  in  the  case  of  different  men.  On  the  one  hand,  we 
find  men  to  whom  the  acceptance  both  of  the  methods  and 
of  the  results  of  modern  scientific  thinking  has  become  a 
matter  of  course.  They  accept  reason  as  the  natural 
method  of  arriving  at  the  truth,  and  growth  as  the  normal 
law  of  life.  They  find  difficulty  with  the  entire  conception 
of  miracle  and  the  supernatural,  and  question  whether  it  is 
any  longer  possible  for  them  honestly  to  accept  the  creeds 
which  were  written  by  men  who  did  not  share  this  larger 
knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  men  to  whom  the 
whole  scientific  attitude  is  disturbing.  Brought  up  to 
identify  religion  with  simple  and  unquestioning  belief, 
they  regard  the  attitude  of  many  modern  men  to  the  Bible 
as  dangerous,  not  to  say  irreligious.  They  are  convinced 
that  to  retain  the  hold  of  the  Gospel  upon  the  allegiance 
of  men  all  attempts  to  modernize  its  form  must  be 
resisted. 

To  each  of  these  kinds  of  men  the  Christian  teacher  has 
a  duty.  It  is  that  of  interpreting  them  to  one  another. 
To  the  man  who  accepts  the  scientific  view  of  the  world 
it  is  the  teacher’s  office  to  show  that  this  view  leaves  un¬ 
touched  all  the  deeper  issues  with  which  religion  is  con¬ 
cerned.  As  science  itself  lives  by  faith  and  has  reared  its 
majestic  structure  by  unquestioning  trust  in  the  consist¬ 
ency  of  nature  and  the  meaningfulness  of  life,  so  in  the 
deeper  questions  where  the  methods  of  science  break 
down,  it  is  reasonable  still  to  follow  the  same  guide,  and 
in  the  mysterious  power  whose  processes  science  studies 
to  discern  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  119 

Jesus  Christ.  For  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  find  the 
scientific  attitude  disturbing,  the  modern  Christian  teacher 
also  has  a  task.  He  must  remind  them  of  the  many 
changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the  view  of  the  world 
since  Jesus  lived,  and  of  the  fact  that  His  Gospel  has 
survived  them  all.  He  must  point  out  the  limitations  of 
science,  which  deals  with  methods  and  causes  rather  than 
with  ultimate  realities,  and  show  how  in  its  own  way  it 
brings  confirmation  of  Christian  truth.  He  must  show 
that  in  the  Christian  experience  we  have  a  ground  for 
faith  which  science  cannot  shake  and  that  in  this 
experience  we  have  a  point  of  contact  with  men  whose 
theoretical  opinions  may  be  very  different  from  our  own. 

Thus  on  both  sides  it  is  the  Christian  teacher’s  privilege 
to  act  as  a  reconciler.  He  reminds  both  liberal  and  con¬ 
servative  that  what  they  hold  in  common  is  far  more  than 
that  in  which  they  differ,  and  that  in  spite  of  all  the 
changes  in  our  changeful  world  the  purpose  of  God  for 
mankind,  His  revelation  in  Christ,  the  presence  of  His 
spirit,  the  power  of  the  Cross,  the  possibility  of  salva¬ 
tion  from  sin,  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  Love  in 
human  society,  the  hope  of  immortality,  are  still  unchang¬ 
ing  realities.  In  the  insistent  demands  of  Christian 
service  he  helps  them  to  discover  a  unity  of  spirit  and 
purpose  in  which  all  lesser  differences  can  be  reconciled. 

Still  more  difficult  is  the  Christian  teacher’s  second 
problem — the  application  of  the  ethical  ideal,  to  which  all 
Christians  are  alike  committed,  to  various  phases  of  our 
modern  life.  What  follows,  for  the  Christian  view  of  man 
and  of  his  duty,  from  the  complex  situations  with  which 
the  modern  world  confronts  us?  How  far  is  the  Chris¬ 
tian  committed  by  his  faith  in  Christ  to  a  particular  kind 
of  social  order  and  what  is  his  responsibility  for  realizing 
that  ideal  in  detail  ?  In  particular,  how  far  is  it  necessary, 
or  legitimate,  for  the  Church  to  express  a  definite  judg¬ 
ment  in  matters  in  controversy  in  the  field  of  economics 
or  politics?  What  does  faith  in  Christ  require  pf  the 


120  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


individual  Christian  in  his  personal  capacity  as  employer 
or  employe,  officeholder  or  voter,  investor  or  consumer, 
patriot  or  citizen  of  the  world?  These  are  questions 
which  earnest  Christians  are  asking  themselves  every  day. 
What  attitude  is  the  Church  to  take  toward  them  in  her 
official  teaching? 

In  other  volumes  of  this  series  we  have  attempted  to 
study  some  of  these  problems  of  application.  Especially 
worthy  of  note  for  the  Christian  teacher,  in  view  of  the 
importance  and  difficulty  of  the  subject  discussed,  is  the 
volume  on  “The  Church  and  Industrial  Reconstruction.” 
In  this  volume  certain  general  principles  have  been  laid 
down  which  apply  in  other  fields  than  that  of  industry  and 
which  it  may  be  worth  while  for  us  here  briefly  to  recall. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  maintained  that  the  Church  cannot 
but  be  concerned  with  industrial  and  economic  questions 
because  they  bear  directly  upon  those  human  values  with 
which  the  Gospel  has  to  do.  Such  principles  as  the  value 
of  every  personality  for  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and 
the  duty  of  service  are  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  and  cannot  be  ignored  in  any  aspect  of  life  by 
the  Church  which  professes  to  speak  in  His  name.  In  the 
second  place,  the  attempt  is  made  to  distinguish  between 
those  Christian  duties  which  all  men  of  good-will  must 
recognize  as  soon  as  they  know  the  facts,  and  that  disputed 
territory  of  theory  in  which  men  equally  honest  and  sin¬ 
cere  may  differ.  While  it  is  the  duty  of  each  individual 
to  follow  his  conscience  wherever  it  may  carry  him,  it  is 
clear  that  the  Church,  as  a  corporate  teaching  body,  must 
center  her  instruction  around  matters  on  which  there 
is  a  fair  agreement  among  thoughtful  Christians  as  to 
what  Christianity  requires.  At  the  same  time  the  Church 
must  also  be  the  free  home  of  prophets  who  live  ahead  of 
their  age  and  lead  the  people  on  to  insights  and  duties 
hitherto  unrecognized. 

In  the  third  place,  the  effort  is  made  in  this  study  to 
give  concrete  illustrations  of  the  application  of  the  prin- 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  121 


ciples  laid  down  in  order  that  the  modes  of  action  recom¬ 
mended  may  be  such  as  have  already  proved  practicable 
by  use.  Finally,  the  distinction  is  made  between  the 
Christian  ideal  for  society  and  the  Christian  way  of 
realizing  that  ideal.  It  is  pointed  out  that  the  presence  of 
men  in  society  who  do  not  hold  the  Christian  faith  or 
accept  the  Christian  ideal  often  makes  it  necessary  for 
the  Christian  in  his  capacity  as  citizen  or  man  of  business 
to  choose  the  better  of  two  possible  alternatives,  even  if 
neither  completely  realizes  the  Christian  ideal.  And  it  is 
insisted  that  such  action,  however  legitimate  as  a  tem¬ 
porary  expedient,  must  always  be  recognized  for  what  it 
is,  as  a  step  toward  the  Christian  goal,  never  as  that  goal 
itself,  and  that  as  long  as  society  remains  the  imperfect 
and  incomplete  thing  it  is  today,  it  must  be  the  duty  of 
the  Church  to  point  out  its  inadequacy  and  to  insist  that 
only  through  the  complete  acceptance  of  the  Christian  law 
of  faith  and  love  can  the  ideal  be  realized. 

(b)  The  Church  as  Interpreter  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
Man  Outside. — Thus  far  we  have  been  considering  chiefly 
the  Church’s  responsibility  for  those  who  are  already 
under  its  influence.  But  there  is  another  aspect  of  its 
work  which  we  cannot  ignore,  and  that  is  its  duty  to 
interpret  the  Christian  Gospel  to  those  individuals  or 
groups  who  do  not  accept  it.  This  is  a  problem  not  only 
of  reaching  the  persons  who  are  wholly  outside  the  Church 
but  also  of  reaching  with  the  influence  of  the  Gospel  those 
who  already  accept  it  so  far  as  their  own  personal  lives 
are  concerned  but  who  do  not  yet  see  its  meaning  for  the 
relations  of  men  in  organized  social  groups.  Millions  of 
men  who  acknowledge  the  claim  of  the  Gospel  in  certain 
realms  of  life  do  not  yet  think  of  it  as  having  any  practical 
bearing  upon  the  principles  which  should  control  an  in¬ 
dustrial  corporation,  a  chamber  of  commerce,  a  trade 
union,  or  a  government.  Many  a  man  who  is  a  Christian 
in  his  family  life  follows  a  very  different  way  of  life  as 


122  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


director  in  a  steel  corporation,  organizer  of  a  textile- 
workers’  union,  political  party  leader,  or  prime  minister 
of  a  state. 

We  can  get  light  on  this  most  difficult  of  all  the 
Church’s  present  problems  by  considering  the  situation  on 
the  foreign  field.  Here  the  primary  work  of  the  Christian 
teacher  is  with  persons  who  have  grown  up  in  non- 
Christian  surroundings  and  who  approach  the  problems  of 
life  without  sharing  the  Christian  presuppositions.  Much 
of  his  time  is  taken  up  in  finding  points  of  contact  with 
their  life  for  his  own  distinctive  message,  and  in  finding 
words  and  ideas  which  will  convey  his  meaning  to  their 
minds.  An  eminent  Chinese  missionary  spent  most  of  his 
life  in  making  a  dictionary  of  Chinese  philosophical  terms 
because  he  was  persuaded  that  without  the  aid  of  the  most 
exact  phraseology  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  Christian 
teacher  to  convey  the  Christian  beliefs  about  God  and 
Jesus  Christ  to  educated  Chinese  in  such  a  way  that  they 
would  be  fairly  understood.  Much  the  same  situation 
meets  us  at  home  in  the  case  of  multitudes  of  people  who, 
so  far  as  their  appreciation  of  Christian  principles  is 
concerned,  are  practically  “heathen.”  The  task  of  the 
Christian  educator  is  to  find  out  who  these  people  are,  to 
gain  a  point  of  contact  with  them,  and  to  discover  the 
language  through  which  the  message  of  the  Gospel  may 
be  conveyed  to  their  minds. 

This  problem  concerns,  in  part,  those  who  are  already 
in  other  educational  institutions,  the  public  schools  and 
the  universities,  where  we  face  the  fact  of  a  secularized 
education  and  the  problem  it  presents.  But  we  are  here 
thinking  primarily  of  groups  which  are  not  so  easily  ac¬ 
cessible  through  the  Church’s  more  ordinary  channels, 
such  groups  as  the  labor  unions,  the  radical  organizations 
in  our  society,  the  chambers  of  commerce,  manufacturers’ 
associations,  and  other  organs  of  business,  and  the  vari¬ 
ous  philanthropic  and  charitable  associations.  These, 
with  the  press  which  they  use  and  largely  control,  are  the 


TEACHING  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  TO  MAN  123 


organs  through  which  public  opinion  is  formed  and  with 
which,  therefore,  those  must  concern  themselves  who  be¬ 
lieve  that  the  Church  has  a  gospel  for  society  and  com¬ 
mands  forces  which  should  be  mobilized  for  the  welfare 
of  the  race. 

The  reason  why  the  Church’s  educational  program 
should  take  account  of  these  groups  is  the  fact  that  they 
are  becoming,  in  an  ever-increasing  degree,  educational 
agencies.  Partly  unconsciously,  partly  of  set  purpose, 
they  are  forming  the  attitudes  and  beliefs  of  men  and 
shaping  their  activities.  In  the  case  of  the  labor  move¬ 
ment,  this  is  definitely  and  deliberately  the  case.  How 
far  this  is  true  of  employers’  associations  and  other  organs 
of  the  business  world  it  is  not  so  easy  to  say;  but  cer¬ 
tainly  it  is  a  fact  that,  whether  consciously  or  uncon¬ 
sciously,  in  these  organizations  and  others  like  them  we 
have  agencies  which  are  carrying  on  an  educational  work, 
in  the  wider  sense  of  the  term,  and  which,  therefore,  we 
cannot  ignore.  We  must  include  in  our  educational  pro¬ 
gram  some  provision  for  interpreting  to  organized  groups 
outside  the  Church  the  meaning  of  Christianity  for  their 
life.  To  this  subject  we  shall  turn  in  the  following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  VI 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 

Thus  far  in  our  study  we  have  been  thinking  of  the 
Church  as  the  teacher  of  the  individual.  Men  and  women, 
children  and  youth,  who  are  in  some  way  associated  with 
the  Church  so  that  its  influence  can  be  brought  directly 
to  bear  upon  their  lives,  have  been  regarded  as  the  objects 
of  its  educational  effort.  Some  form  of  a  definite  teacher- 
pupil  relationship  has  been  constantly  in  our  minds. 

But  there  are  millions  of  men  who  will  never  sit  in  our 
pews,  whose  children  will  never  attend  our  Sunday 
Schools,  with  whom  no  formal  relationship  of  teacher- 
pupil  is  possible.  They  do  not  care  to  be  taught  about 
Christianity;  either  they  do  not  understand  it  or  are 
indifferent  to  it.  What  is  the  Church,  as  a  teacher,  to  do 
for  them?  Approximately  60  per  cent,  of  our  population 
are  not  members  of  any  Church,  Protestant,  Catholic,  or 
Jewish.  Probably  less  than  25  per  cent,  of  the  people  of 
an  average  community  attend  church  or  Sunday  School 
on  a  given  Sunday.  If  they  will  not  come  to  us  to  be 
consciously  taught,  we  must  in  some  way  go  to  them. 
Somehow  we  must  get  the  Christian  ideals  into  media  that 
do  reach  them — those  media  which,  like  the  daily  press, 
for  example,  are  unconsciously  teaching  all  the  people  all 
the  while — so  that  indirectly,  if  not  directly,  they  may  be 
learning  what  Christianity  means  for  the  world. 

Even  in  the  case  of  those  whom  we  are  already  reaching 
through  our  direct  teaching,  we  need  always  to  remember 
that  there  are  other  “educational”  influences,  more  vague 
but  no  less  powerful,  constantly  at  work  upon  them. 
All  the  social  environment  in  which  the  individual  lives  is, 

124 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


125 


for  good  or  ill,  having  its  potent  effect  in  making  him 
what  he  is  to  become.  It  so  conditions  his  living  and  so 
affects  the  development  of  his  character  that  in  order  to 
make  our  Christian  teaching  effective  we  must  give  a 
Christian  direction  to  these  forces  which  determine  our 
national  attitudes,  our  economic  assumptions,  our  social 
standards,  all  the  controlling  ideas  of  modern  civilization. 
A  Church  which  should  think  only  of  the  individual  and 
give  no  direct  attention  to  the  social  environment  would 
be  like  a  physician  who  should  try  to  bring  a  tubercular 
convalescent  to  sturdy  health  without  choosing  for  him 
a  climate  conducive  to  that  end. 

These  accepted  customs,  these  prevailing  attitudes,  these 
general  standards  of  thought  and  conduct,  these  current 
social  viewpoints,  we  call  public  opinion.  This  it  is  which 
largely  determines  the  character  of  our  community  life 
and  our  social  organization,  and  so  is  a  mighty  educational 
force,  either  supporting  or  blocking  the  efforts  which  the 
Church  is  making  in  behalf  of  individuals.  In  order  to 
train  a  single  individual  to  be  Christian  we  need  to  Chris¬ 
tianize  public  opinion.  There  is  no  factor  that  counts  for 
more  in  shaping  his  decisions.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  public  opinion  is  the  most  powerful  “educator” 
in  our  modern  world. 

The  task  of  Christian  education,  then,  is  not  simply  one 
of  converting  more  individuals ;  it  is  more  even  than  a 
more  effective  teaching  of  individuals  as  to  what  it  means 
to  be  a  Christian.  It  cannot  stop  short  of  a  definite  un¬ 
dertaking  to  Christianize  the  public  opinion  which  is 
responsible  for  the  social  structure  in  which  the  individual 
has  his  being,  and  which  always  makes  it  either  easier 
or  harder  for  the  individual  to  be  a  Christian  in  the 
daily  relationships  of  life.  How  often  this  public  opinion 
is  molded  by  selfish  forces  for  selfish  ends  we  know  all  too 
well.  The  practical  question  for  the  Church  is,  are  we  to 
allow  public  opinion  to  be  an  opposing  influence  or  are  we 


126  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


to  capture  it  for  Christianity  and  make  it  a  great  evan¬ 
gelistic  and  educational  force? 

i.  The  Wider  Teaching  Mission  of  the  Church 

This  public  opinion  is  not  simply  the  sum  of  the 
opinions  of  individuals.  To  some  extent  at  least  it  is  an 
organic  thing — a  group  attitude  which  would  not  exist 
except  for  the  relationship  of  individuals  to  each  other 
and  their  reactions  upon  each  other  in  unconscious  ways. 
For  society  itself  is  not  made  up  of  independent  individ¬ 
uals,  and  nothing  more.  A  social  group  is  not  merely 
the  totality  of  its  separate  members.  When  they  become 
associated  with  one  another  in  a  common  life,  a  plus 
element  has  entered  in.  By  virtue  of  their  interplay  with 
one  another  they  become  other  than  they  would  ever 
be  as  unrelated  units.  There  results  a  social  conscience 
and  a  social  will  which  are  something  more  than  a 
mathematical  addition  of  individual  consciences  and 
wills.  If  anyone  questions  this,  let  him  recall  how  war¬ 
time  propaganda  developed  a  social  atmosphere  which 
swept  hosts  of  individuals  into  making  decisions  that 
apart  from  the  group-spirit  they  would  never  have  made. 
Or  let  him  think  of  a  crowd  to  whom  the  suggestion  of 
lynching  a  black  man  has  been  made.  The  members  do  as 
a  collective  body  what  not  one  of  them  would  ever  do  on 
his  own  independent  initiative.  What  happens  in  an 
intense  degree  in  war-time  or  in  the  action  of  the  mob  is, 
in  considerable  measure,  happening  all  the  time.  Men  in 
groups  are  not  the  same  men  that  they  would  be  as  sepa¬ 
rate  individuals.  Through  their  relationships  with  one 
another  they  develop  types  of  activity  and  of  thought 
which  gradually  become  standards  for  the  group  and  are 
transmitted  from  one  generation  to  another. 

It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of  the  influence 
of  society  in  standardizing  the  activities  and  the  beliefs 
of  its  members.  In  the  first  place,  the  life  of  everyone 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


127 


is  conditioned  by  the  kind  of  civilization  into  which 
he  is  born.  In  the  second  place,  he  is  dependent,  at 
every  turn  thereafter,  on  what  his  fellows  have  done  and 
are  doing  now.  The  very  language  which  he  uses  is  a 
social  institution  that  he  himself  did  not  create.  Hosts 
of  his  presuppositions  and  habits  and  modes  of  action 
come  to  him  as  a  part  of  his  social  heritage  rather  than 
as  the  result  of  any  reasoning  process  of  his  own.  What 
the  individual  himself  achieves  and  what  he  receives  from 
the  social  medium  in  which  he  moves  are  so  interwoven 
that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  extricate  the  one  from  the 
other.  Society,  in  a  word,  makes  its  members  quite  as 
much  as  they  make  society.  While  we  are  trying  to  edu¬ 
cate  the  individual  to  the  Christian  way  of  living,  existing 
social  and  economic  arrangements  which  give  the  rewards 
to  those  who  selfishly  compete  for  private  advantage  are 
subtly  and  powerfully  educating  him  in  an  unchristian 
attitude  toward  life.  To  teach  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  oneness  of  the  human  family  by  text  book  and  by 
word  of  mouth,  while  unbrotherly  inequalities  of  oppor¬ 
tunity  are  teaching  the  opposite,  will  be  to  sow  good  seed 
on  stony  ground.  To  proclaim  the  motive  of  service  in 
Sunday  School  and  pulpit  will  not  carry  us  far  if  the 
industrial  world,  in  which  men  spend  the  greater  part  of 
their  waking  hours,  is  organized  around  the  idea  that  the 
way  to  succeed  is  to  grab  as  much  as  you  can  for  your¬ 
self.  No  one  can  be  wholly  a  Christian  so  long  as  he  is 
bound  up  with  an  unchristian ,  or  partly  Christianized, 
social  order. 

The  realization  of  this  truth  in  earlier  centuries  drove 
the  most  devoted  spirits  into  monasteries  in  order  that 
there,  apart  from  opposing  influences,  they  might  live 
under  conditions  that  required  no  compromise  with  an 
unchristian  world.  The  day  of  the  monastery  has  gone, 
but  the  conditions  against  which  it  was  a  protest  remain 
and  must  be  dealt  with  by  the  Church  in  some  positive 
way.  For  Christian  discipleship  can  never  be  merely  a 


128  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


matter  between  an  isolated  individual  soul  and  God.  The 
individual  exists  and  has  meaning  only  in  society.  The 
minister  who  at  an  ecclesiastical  gathering  protested  that 
he  wanted  “the  Church  to  keep  entirely  away  from  politi¬ 
cal  issues,  away  from  industrial  questions,  away  from 
international  problems,  and  to  confine  itself  to  teaching 
the  Kingdom  of  God,”  was  proceeding  on  the  utterly 
false  assumption  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  can  consist  of 
souls  dwelling  in  a  social  vacuum. 

Here,  to  take  a  concrete  example,  is  a  conscientious 
employer  who  earnestly  desires  to  organize  his  whole 
business  establishment  around  what  he  sees  to  be  the 
principles  of  Jesus.  He  does  not  want  to  treat  labor  as  a 
“commodity,”  to  be  bought  at  the  lowest  possible  figure, 
like  coal  or  cotton.  He  has  come  to  see  labor  as  human 
personalities,  meant  for  all  the  fulness  of  life  which  he 
enjoys.  He  does  not  want  his  industry  to  have  as  its 
organizing  principle  a  ruthless  competition  in  profit¬ 
taking.  He  wants  it  really  to  be  an  expression  of  brother¬ 
hood.  But  when  he  attempts  to  put  his  principles  into 
practise  he  finds  that  what  he  himself  can  do,  in  shorten¬ 
ing  hours,  increasing  wages,  or  preventing  unemployment, 
is  limited  by  the  competitive  system  of  which  he  is  in 
spite  of  himself  a  part.  Many  things,  of  course,  he  can  do 
independently,  but  other  things  he  can  do  only  if  they  are 
practised  more  widely  throughout  the  industry  as  a  whole ; 
else  he  will  too  greatly  imperil  his  own  continuance  in 
business  and  so  stand  in  the  very  way  of  the  service  which 
a  successful  and  socially  operated  industry  can  render. 
He  finds,  in  other  words,  that  he  cannot  be  a  Christian  in 
business,  in  the  full  sense,  until  business  itself  is  organized 
on  Christian  standards. 

Of  every  one  of  us  it  is  true  that  we  cannot  be  absolutely 
Christian  in  our  living  so  long  as  we  are  members  of  a 
social  order  not  yet  built  on  a  Christian  basis.  If  I  invest 
my  modest  savings  in  industrial  stocks,  my  generous 
dividends  may  be  meaning  to  those  who  actually  produce 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


129 


them  less  than  a  decent  wage.  In  this  way  I  contribute 
to  their  poverty,  for  which  I  thought  they  were  them¬ 
selves  solely  responsible.  Indeed,  for  the  citizen  the 
choice  is  not  often  the  wholly  Christian  versus  the  un¬ 
christian  course.  When  competitive  armaments  have 
culminated  in  war  the  only  possibility  is  to  choose  the  less 
unchristian  alternative — either  fight  reluctantly  for  the 
less  guilty  side  or  withhold  support  from  both  alike,  re¬ 
gardless  of  the  balance  of  right  and  wrong.  Even  if  one 
tries  to  choose  the  latter  path,  he  cannot  entirely  do  so, 
for  simply  to  pay  taxes  or  till  the  soil  is  to  contribute  to 
the  nation’s  success  in  arms.  From  such  situations  there 
is,  individually,  no  escape.  The  one  way  out  is  to  arouse 
a  social  conscience  and  a  public  sentiment  that  will  break 
through  the  inertia  of  inherited  arrangements  and  set 
to  rebuilding  our  social  organization  along  better  lines. 

The  Church,  then,  in  addition  to  working  for  indi¬ 
viduals,  one  by  one,  must  find  ways  of  Christianizing 
public  opinion  concerning  many  generally  accepted  cus¬ 
toms  and  conventions  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  While 
never  abating  for  a  moment  its  energy  in  laying  the  in¬ 
dispensable  foundation  of  Christian  hearts  and  wills  in 
those  whom  it  can  directly  reach  in  its  own  schools  and 
congregations,  it  must,  at  the  same  time,  be  holding  the 
Christian  ideal  before  the  social  group  as  a  whole.  We 
must  do  not  only  what  social  workers  call  “case  work” — 
that  is,  deal  with  instances  of  individual  need — but  also 
“mass  work.”  We  must  educate  the  general  public  to 
the  necessity  of  changing  the  conditions  out  of  which 
wrong  attitudes  and  wrong  actions  naturally  spring.1  In 
the  problem  of  health,  for  example,  who  today  fails  to 
recognize  the  importance  not  only  of  curing  individual 
patients  but  also  of  eradicating  the  causes  of  disease  that 

*For  the  fuller  development  of  the  comparison  see  F.  E.  John¬ 
son’s  “The  Social  Gospel  and  Personal  Religion.”  Association 
Press,  1922. 


130  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

lurk  in  impure  milk,  lack  of  sunshine,  or  undrained 
swamps  ? 

In  a  notable  achievement  in  which  the  Church  played 
#ie  most  important  part — the  prohibition  of  the  liquor 
traffic — we  have  an  illuminating  example  in  the  moral 
and  religious  realm  of  what  we  may  call  “mass  work”  in 
contrast  with  “case  work.”  The  old  method  of  working 
for  temperance  was  to  instruct  the  individual  as  to  the 
evils  of  strong  drink  and  induce  him  to  sign  a  pledge. 
Yet  at  the  very  time  when  we  were  trying  to  make  the 
man  temperate  we  were  leaving  him  unnecessarily  ex¬ 
posed  to  the  attack  of  a  saloon  on  every  corner.  Today 
we  undertake  not  only  to  teach  the  individual  the  value 
of  abstinence  but  also  to  secure  a  social  environment  in 
which  it  will  be  reasonably  normal  for  him  to  abstain. 
We  found,  to  repeat  a  suggestive  epigram,  that  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  not  only  to  keep  the  man  away  from  the  liquor  but 
to  keep  the  liquor  away  from  the  man. 

The  method  of  approach  illustrated  by  the  legal  prohi¬ 
bition  of  the  liquor  traffic  could  be  paralleled  in  many 
other  social  fields.  How  was  duelling  abolished?  Not 
by  converting  duellers  one  by  one,  but  by  a  great  awaken¬ 
ing  of  the  social  conscience.  Was  slavery  abolished  simply 
by  persuading  slave  owners  to  free  their  slaves?  No;  it 
was  necessary  to  bring  about  a  different  form  of  economic 
organization.  Turn  now  to  existing  phases  of  social  evil 
— lynching,  for  example,  participated  in  often  by  “Chris¬ 
tian”  people.  Shall  we  get  rid  of  it  by  converting  indi¬ 
vidual  lynchers?  Must  we  not  rather  organize  public 
opinion  against  it  so  strongly  that  lynching  will  no  longer 
be  tolerated  by  a  community?  Or  child  labor?  Can  we 
hope  to  eliminate  it  solely  by  winning  employers  one  by 
one  to  fuller  discipleship  to  Christ?  Must  we  not  also 
pass  laws  which  will  make  the  exploitation  of  children  for 
private  profit  more  difficult  and  which  will  ensure  that  the 
employer  who  does  not  want  to  make  money  at  the  ex- 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION  131 

pense  of  little  children  will  not  be  forced  into  unequal 
competition  with  the  ruthless  and  unscrupulous? 

We  have  referred  to  legislation  as  the  means  through 
which  the  aroused  public  mind  may  make  itself  effective. 
This  is,  no  doubt,  the  most  obvious  way,  but  it  is  by  no 
means  the  only  one.  Quite  apart  from  the  question  of 
legal  enactments  there  is  also  the  possibility  of  crystalliz¬ 
ing  public  opinion  into  ideas  and  ideals  which  gain  such 
power  as  to  become  a  part  of  the  generally  accepted  social 
code.  When  a  social  atmosphere  is  created  so  that  masses 
of  men  think  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time — an  educa¬ 
tional  result  which  the  Government  achieved  in  a  remark¬ 
able  degree  in  war  time — the  effects  of  social  inheritance 
are  often  materially  modified. 

The  necessity  for  the  creation  of  public  opinion  for  the 
outlawing  of  war  will  serve  as  an  illustration  of  what  we 
mean  when  we  are  speaking  of  this  wider  educational 
responsibility  of  the  Church.  After  the  Sunday  School 
has  done  all  that  the  most  exacting  educator  could  expect 
of  it  in  training  its  children  in  the  Christian  way  of  life, 
after  the  Christian  college  has  performed  its  task  of  en¬ 
larging  the  social  outlook  of  the  Christian  youth  who 
come  to  its  halls,  even  after  the  agencies  of  missionary 
education  have  developed  an  international  mind  and  a 
desire  for  world  service,  there  is  still  left  a  tremendous 
task  for  Christian  education  if  war  is  actually  to  be  abol¬ 
ished.  The  facts  concerning  the  staggering  cost  of  arma¬ 
ment,  the  inevitable  consequences  of  suspicion,  distrust, 
and  ill-will  which  "preparedness”  produces,  the  subtle 
connection  between  war  and  the  economic  exploitation  of 
backward  people,  the  need  for  building  up  the  interna¬ 
tional  agencies  and  institutions  that  will  serve  as  a  substi¬ 
tute  method  of  obtaining  security  and  justice — all  these 
and  other  factors  must  be  brought  home  to  the  citizens 
as  a  whole.  The  general  ideal  of  brotherhood  taught 
in  Sunday  School  and  pulpit  must  be  analyzed  in  its 
application  to  concrete  and  specific  issues  and  actually 


132  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

brought  to  bear  upon  them.  What  does  brotherhood 
demand  in  our  relations  with  Europe?  Or  in  our  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  Japanese  in  California  in  view  of  complex 
economic  and  social  considerations  involved?  Or  in  our 
relations  with  Haiti?  Or  in  the  contacts  of  the  white  and 
the  Negro  races  ?  To  secure  a  Christian  solution  of  such 
questions  as  these  requires  us  to  come  to  grips  with  the 
great  organs  by  which  contemporary  public  opinion  is 
formed.  For  it  is  a  question  of  having  not  only  Chris¬ 
tian  motives  but  also  a  clear  discernment  as  to  what  those 
motives  require  in  a  given  situation ,  and  practical  wisdom 
as  to  how  our  good-will  may  be  made  effective  in  stirring 
the  social  group,  in  its  corporate  capacity,  to'  appropriate 
action. 

The  Churches,  in  a  word,  must  “go  into  the  business  of 
creating  an  effective  public  conscience  regarding  all  rela¬ 
tions  of  individuals,  classes,  nations,  and  races.  The  cry 
of  the  world  is  for  the  Christian  Churches  to  go  into  this 
business  at  once.  If  the  world  is  to  be  saved  for  Chris¬ 
tianity,  the  Churches  must  soon  become  more  effectively 
organized  for  the  guidance  and  control  of  public  opinion. 
Only  thus  can  a  Christian  environment  be  created  for  the 
nurture  of  Christian  character.”  2 

2.  How  the  Church  Can  Influence  Public  Opinion 

At  the  present  time  whole  groups  are  touched  by  our 
teaching  agencies  only  in  a  pitifully  fragmentary  way. 
There  is,  to  take  but  a  single  illustration,  the  great  move¬ 
ment  of  organized  labor,  coming  rapidly  to  self-conscious¬ 
ness  and  destined  to  play  a  large  part  in  whatever  social 
changes  may  take  place,  yet,  generally  speaking,  indif¬ 
ferent  to  the  Church.  There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  the 

aC.  A.  Ellwood,  “The  Reconstruction  of  Religion,”  Macmillan, 
1922.  The  closing  chapter  should  be  read  entire  in  connection 
with  this  discussion  of  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  Public 
Opinion.  1  ^ 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


133 


great  organizations  of  capital.  How  are  we  to  reach  these 
groups,  now  largely  unreached  so  far  as  group-action  is 
concerned?  Only  by  influencing  somehow  the  factors 
which  are  now  molding  their  attitude  on  public  questions. 

What  are  these  factors?  First  of  all,  as  we  have  al¬ 
ready  intimated,  the  public  press.  Here  is  a  powerful, 
almost  incredibly  powerful,  agency  which  is  shaping  the 
social  outlook  of  the  vast  majority  of  men.  Only  one 
person  out  of  four  may  go  to  Church  on  Sunday,  but  all 
four  read  the  newspaper  almost  every  day.  According  to 
the  “World  Almanac”  for  1923  the  daily  circulation  of 
American  newspapers  in  the  large  cities  alone  is  over 
33,000,000.  This  includes  only  dailies  and  only  papers 
printed  in  English.  Weekly  and  monthly  papers  and 
periodicals  have  a  total  circulation  of  200,000,000  per 
issue.  These  printed  pages  are,  for  good  or  ill,  a  tre¬ 
mendous  educational  force.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  the  sympathies  and  prejudices  of  most  men  are 
affected  by  the  press  more  than  by  any  other  single  factor. 
Every  day  it  is  teaching  the  whole  nation ! 

Yet  how  far  does  the  point  of  view  of  the  Christian 
Church  find  expression  therein?  On  the  day  when  the 
writer  was  outlining  this  chapter  he  scrutinized,  as  an 
experiment,  the  pages  of  one  of  the  outstanding  news¬ 
papers  in  America.  Out  of  84  columns,  exclusive  of  ad¬ 
vertising,  only  a  little  over  a  single  column  had  to  do 
with  the  Church  or  with  religion.  When  another  great 
daily  some  months  ago  published  a  complete  list  of  its 
staff,  occupying  no  less  than  four  columns,  it  appeared 
that  while  there  were  men  assigned  to  cover  politics, 
sports,  literature,  drama,  finance,  military  affairs,  science, 
fashions,  the  courts,  and  almost  every  conceivable  human 
interest,  not  a  single  man  was  assigned  to  religion  and  the 
Churches.  Either  their  work  was  not  presented  at  all,  or 
else  it  was  handled  not  by  one  especially  trained  but  by 
some  casual  reporter.  So  far  as  this  mighty  agency  of 


134  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


public  opinion  is  concerned,  the  influence  of  the  Church  is 
all  but  negligible. 

The  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek.  One  reason — a  com¬ 
mendable  one — is  the  reluctance  of  the  Church  to  use  the 
methods  of  the  “press  agent”  and  the  propagandist.  But 
there  are  less  creditable  reasons.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  such  meager  efforts  as  the  Churches  have  made  to 
secure  a  hearing  in  the  daily  press  have  been  too  centered 
about  such  purely  private  and  selfish  matters  as  filling 
their  pews  or  advertising  conventional  “activities.”  Too 
little  attention  has  been  devoted  to  interpreting  to  the  out¬ 
side  public  what  Christianity  really  means  as  a  way  of  life 
in  the  modern  world.  The  chief  reason,  however,  for 
our  ill  success  with  the  press  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
Church  has  failed  to  realize  how  great  a  missionary 
opportunity  is  here  presented  and  to  devise  the  means  by 
which  it  can  avail  itself  of  it.  We  have  not  thought  of 
the  press  as  a  great  agency  of  evangelism  and  religious 
education. 

Another  far-reaching  influence  in  molding  the  opinion 
of  the  rank  and  file  whom  the  Church  is  not  teaching  di¬ 
rectly  through  pulpit,  Sunday  School  or  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciation  is  the  recreational  life  of  the  community.  A  single 
phase  will  suggest  the  immensity  of  the  problem — the  mo¬ 
tion  picture  house.  That  practically  the  whole  civilized 
world  goes  to  the  movies  and  that  children  and  young 
people — those  in  the  most  formative  period  of  life — attend 
with  regularity  is  a  fact  of  tremendous  consequence. 
Careful  investigations  in  several  cities  have  shown  that 
about  nine-tenths  of  the  boys  and  girls  of  school  age 
go  to  the  movies.  Statistics  of  attendance  at  theaters  in 
the  United  States,  given  out  by  the  motion  picture  indus¬ 
try,  indicate  that  in  every  ten-day  period  the  attendance 
is  almost  as  great  as  the  total  population.  Here,  then,  is 
an  agency  which  reaches  vastly  more  people  than  the 
Church  and  even  in  the  case  of  those  reached  by  the 
Church  generally  has  them  for  more  hours  per  week  and 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


135 


brings  to  their  minds  and  hearts  the  more  vivid  appeal 
of  the  eye. 

Why  should  the  Church  not  utilize  this  unique  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  interpreting  the  meaning  of  Christianity  and 
the  work  of  the  Church  to  groups  that  we  now  are  quite 
failing  to  touch  ?  Yet  how  seldom  does  the  screen  depict 
any  of  the  great  social  and  humanitarian  achieve¬ 
ments  which  Christianity  has  inspired !  When  has  the 
noble  life-work  of  Grenfell  among  the  fisher  folk  of 
Labrador  been  shown?  Or  the  redemption  of  the  New 
Hebrides  by  John  G.  Paton?  Or  the  work  of  Hampton 
or  Tuskegee  Institutes  in  helping  a  race  up  from  slavery? 

Surely  here  are  great  themes,  the  human  interest  of 
which  is  apparent  as  soon  as  they  are  suggested.  The 
setting  and  dramatic  value  of  any  one  of  these,  and 
hosts  of  others,  would  satisfy  Rex  Beach  himself.  And 
their  message  could  inspire  multitudes,  who  hardly  ever 
hear  of  missionary  effort,  with  something  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  motive  of  service  to  mankind.  Yet  the  film  is  not 
so  used.  In  the  earlier  centuries  the  Church  was  the 
foster  mother  of  the  drama,  the  mystery  play  being  its 
direct  creation.  Why  is  there  now  no  contact  between 
the  Church  and  the  widespread  form  of  drama  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  screen?  Largely,  no  doubt  because  of  the 
short-sighted  policies  of  motion  picture  producers.  But 
that  is  hardly  the  whole  story.  What  have  the  agencies  V 
of  the  Churches  done  to  secure  points  of  contacts  with 
the  producers  of  pictures,  to  present  to  them  the  possi¬ 
bilities  of  making  great  contributions  to  social  welfare 
through  this  educational  medium  which  reaches  the  mind 

of  millions  who  do  not  darken  the  doors  of  the  Church?  ,/ 

•  •  •  •  •  •  1  '  ^  ^ 

Under  our  present  disjointed  denominationalism  it  is 

very  difficult  to  devise  means  of  securing  adequate 
contacts  with  powerful  agencies  like  the  press,  or  the 
motion-picture  industry.  First,  because  a  single  denomi¬ 
nation  usually  does  not  have  the  resources  to  maintain 
an  agency  of  interpretation  sufficiently  expert  to  com- 


• 


136  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

mand  the  attention  of  as  highly  organized  concerns  as 
the  great  newspaper  offices ;  secondly,  and  more  important, 
because  the  voice  of  many  Churches  does  not  appear  to 
he  the  voice  of  the  Church  at  all.  At  best  it  seems  only 
the  opinion  of  a  certain  party  or  special  group  within 
the  Church  and  so  does  not  have  the  weight  or  significance 
to  give  it  journalistic  value  or  to  impress  the  public  with 
the  fact  that  the  Christian  conception  of  life  and  duty  is 
a  mighty  force  in  society.  As  things  are  now  it  is  a 
“Presbyterian”  missionary  effort,  a  “Methodist”  Con¬ 
ference,  or  a  “Baptist”  educational  movement  that  is  re¬ 
ported  in  the  press,  and  as  a  result  the  fundamental  char¬ 
acter  of  Christianity ,  as  a  distinctive  way  of  life,  set  over 
against  much  of  the  life  of  the  world,  is  not  presented  in 
any  convincing  way. 

If  the  Church  is  to  succeed  in  using  such  educational 
agencies  as  these  for  the  forming  of  public  opinion  along 
Christian  lines,  some  way  must  be  found  of  bringing  the 
combined  impact  of  the  whole  Church  to  bear  upon  the 
public  mind.  Christians  will  have  to  find  a  common 
voice  that  will  really  be  regarded  as  expressing  the  thought 
of  the  Church.  For  practical  purposes  there  is  now  no 
such  thing  as  “the  Church,”  a  single  organization  which 
can  give  united  expression  to  the  sentiment  and  judgment 
of  the  followers  of  Christ.  There  are  rather  Churches* 
separated  units,  most  of  the  time  going  their  way  with¬ 
out  much  relation  to  each  other,  and  as  a  result  the  moral 
leadership  which  the  one  Church  of  Christ  might  exer¬ 
cise  is  weakened  and  dissipated.  So  the  question  of 
Christian  education,  in  this  wider  sense,  is  simply  insep¬ 
arable  from  the  question  of  Christian  unity. 

The  “unhappy  divisions  of  Christendom”  are  not  simply 
a  sentimental  concern;  they  touch,  and  touch  vitally,  the 
power  of  the  Church  to  hold  the  Christian  ideal  before 
the  world.  When  it  is  a  question  of  reaching  the  powerful 
agencies  and  movements  outside  the  Churches,  there  are 
many  tasks  which  we  cannot  do  at  all  unless  we  can  do 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


137 


them  together.  In  war  time  this  was  conspicuously  true. 
Then  contacts  of  the  Church  with  the  Government  itself, 
with  governmental  agencies,  and  with  great  social  organi¬ 
zations  like  the  Red  Cross  were  a  necessity.  Yet  forces 
so  united  as  these  governmental  and  semi-governmental 
agencies  would  not,  could  not  be  expected,  to  maintain 
contact  with  scores  of  denominations  separately;  nor 
could  any  single  denomination,  apart  from  the  others, 
make  a  strong  enough  appeal  to  these  agencies  to  claim 
their  serious  attention.  Consequently  the  denominations 
found  it  necessary  to  function  together,  at  least  in  certain 
tasks,  through  the  cooperative  agency  known  as  the  Gen¬ 
eral  War-Time  Commission  of  the  Churches,  created  by 
the  Federal  Council.  But  what  was  obviously  true  then  is 
as  true  now  in  the  case  of  our  relations  with  great  social 
forces  like  the  daily  press,  the  motion  picture  industry, 
the  labor  movement,  or  chambers  of  commerce.  To  reach 
them  in  any  effective  way  with  positive  Christian  influ¬ 
ences,  it  is  imperative  to  find  methods  by  which  the  Church 
can  come  with  the  sum  total  of  its  strength.  Any  lack  of 
unity  weakens  not  only  the  Church’s  efficiency  but  also 
its  moral  authority  in  presenting  the  Christian  ideal  to 
the  world.  Some  means  we  must  have  of  putting  behind 
the  Christian  message  the  consolidated  power  which  comes 
from  singleness  of  aim  and  united  expression.  The 
trouble  today  in  the  approach  of  the  churches  to  the  pub¬ 
lic,  it  has  been  well  said,  is  that  “each  Church  is  like  a 
musician  in  possession  of  a  distinctive  instrument.  The 
instrument  may  be  excellent,  and  the  musician  may  be 
playing  it  well,  but  the  effect  is  not  orchestral.  At  best 
it  suggests  just  the  tuning  up.”3 

But  even  if  we  can  secure  a  common  voice,  have  we  a 
common  mind  ?  To  have  an  instrument  of  united  expres¬ 
sion  would  be  of  little  consequence  if  we  have  nothing 

1  Francis  J.  McConnell,  “Public  Opinion  and  Theology,”  Abing¬ 
don  Press,  1920,  p.  194- 


138  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

on  which  we  agree  sufficiently  to  be  able  to  speak.4  To 
such  general  principles  as  brotherhood  and  love,  all  Chris¬ 
tians,  of  course,  give  assent.  But  when  we  try  to  apply 
these  principles  to  any  of  the  concrete  moral  issues  on 
which  the  world  needs  guidance  from  the  Church,  how 
much  consensus  of  judgment  do  we  find?  Often  even  the 
facts,  on  which  judgment  must  be  based,  are  not  known. 
Take  our  present  industrial  situation.  We  all  want  a 
more  brotherly  social  life,  but  what  do  we  know  about 
the  actual  facts  of  our  present  world — about  the  extent 
and  causes  of  unemployment,  about  the  inadequacy  of 
income  of  the  rank  and  file  of  wage-earners,  about  the 
good  and  ill  of  labor-unions,  about  the  efifects  of  economic 
competition,  and  a  host  of  other  questions  ?  A  few  people 
know  the  facts.  A  few  see  clearly  the  issues  at  stake. 
But  till  Christians  in  general  share  this  knowledge  and 
this  insight  the  needed  unity  will  be  unattainable.  Ob¬ 
viously  we  must  have  not  only  an  organ  of  collective 
utterance  but  also  an  organ  of  collective  thinking.  We 
need  the  most  patient  analysis  and  study  of  the  social 
issues  that  confront  the  Church,  so  thorough  that  it  will, 
first  of  all,  win  the  assent  of  the  Church  as  a  whole,  and, 
as  a  consequence,  be  able  to  command  the  attention  and 
the  solid  respect  of  the  outside  world. 


3.  Beginning  to  Deal  with  the  Problem 

Such  facts  as  these  give  significance  to  a  body  like  the 
Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Religious  Outlook,  con¬ 
stituted  before  the  close  of  the  war  by  the  Federal  Coun¬ 
cil  of  the  Churches  and  the  General  War-Time  Commis¬ 
sion.  For  the  distinctive  thing  about  it  was  simply 
this,  that  its  one  purpose  was  collective  thinking.  The 
representatives  of  the  various  denominations  that  com- 

4  Cf.  William  Adams  Brown,  “The  Church  in  America,”  Chap¬ 
ter  XVI,  Macmillan,  1922. 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


139 


prised  it  set  for  themselves  no  other  task  than  to  study 
— and  to  study  together — some  of  the  more  difficult  prob¬ 
lems  confronting  the  Church.  Their  work  showed  clearly 
that  “the  final  result  of  working  things  out  together  is 
more  than  the  sum  of  what  the  same  individuals  could 
reach  working  alone.”  But  the  kind  of  group  thinking 
which  it  applied  for  a  time  to  a  few  problems  needs  to  be 
carried  on  continuously  and  in  relation  to  other  great 
social  issues — our  international  and  our  interracial  re¬ 
lations,  for  example — on  which  Christian  public  opinion 
must  be  formed.  A  distinguished  British  economist,  com¬ 
menting  on  the  work  of  the  Committee  on  the  War  and 
the  Religious  Outlook,  went  to  the  heart  of  the  matter 
when  he  declared  that  a  permanent  “thinking  depart¬ 
ment”  of  the  Churches  is  a  necessity  if  it  is  to  grip  the 
public  mind  effectively.  His  words  are  worth  quoting 
at  length: 

“One  lays  down  even  so  admirable  a  document  as  this 
report  [on  “The  Church  and  Industrial  Reconstruction”] 
with  some  uncertainty  as  to  what  its  effect  will  be.  And 
that  feeling  is  partly  the  result,  perhaps,  of  uncertainty 
as  to  the  ways  in  which  the  Christian  Churches  can,  in 
fact,  help  to  realize  the  kind  of  principles  for  which 
they  stand.  There  are  several  ways  in  which  a  Church 
acts  upon  the  social  mind  of  a  community.  It  is  a  teach¬ 
ing  body.  It  occupies  a  status  of  public  influence  and 
weight,  and  by  conferences  and  manifestoes  can  help 
to  mold  public  opinion.  In  both  capacities  it  can  con¬ 
tribute  a  stream  of  thought  and  inspiration,  the  effect  of 
which  may  be  slow,  but  can  hardly  help,  in  the  long  run, 
to  be  considerable.  It  would  be  more  considerable  if  the 
Churches  were  better  equipped  for  their  task.  The  situa¬ 
tion  is  possibly  not  the  same  in  America  as  in  England. 
But  in  the  latter  country  any  observer  must  be  impressed 
by  the  disability  under  which  the  Church  of  England 
labors  in  coping  with  questions  which  concern,  or  ought 
to  concern,  the  Christian  conscience,  through  its  mere  lack 
of  any  permanent  machinery  for  grappling  with  them. 
What  it  needs  is  a  ‘thinking  department/  a  staff  of  offi¬ 
cers  whose  duty  it  is  to  collect  and  systematize  informa- 


140  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tion  and  to  supply  the  leaders  of  the  Church  with  the 
knowledge  needed  if  they  are  to  speak  with  effect.  At 
present  it  appoints  committees  when  occasion  arises.  But 
improvised  opinions  are  rarely  effective.  If  it  is  to  speak 
with  any  authority  on  international  or  economic  ques¬ 
tions,  it  must  create  an  organ  to  accumulate,  sift,  and 
criticize  the  material  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a 
reasoned  judgment.’5  6 

Certainly  we  shall  never  succeed  in  making  the  Church 
a  great  power  in  the  formation  of  public  opinion  until 
we  have  set  ourselves  more  seriously  to  the  task  of 
thoroughly  understanding  contemporary  social  conditions 
and  social  forces.  We  rightly  emphasize  the  indispensa¬ 
bleness  of  good-will,  but  good-will  alone  is  not  enough. 
We  must  have  the  intelligence  to  make  it  effective  in 
dealing  with  the  concrete  problems  of  actual  life.  The 
Christian  Gospel,  the  solvent  of  the  world's  ills,  must  be 
guided  by  accurate  knowledge  of  society.  In  a  growing 
alliance  between  Christianity  and  social  science  is  our 
hope  of  social  salvation. 

Significant  beginnings  have  been  made  by  the  Churches 
in  recent  years  in  studying  concrete  situations,  in  crys¬ 
tallizing  their  own  point  of  view  and  in  holding  it  before 
the  wider  public.  The  vigorous  campaign  among  the 
Churches  for  reduction  of  armament,  under  the  leadership 
of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  and  the  World 
Alliance  for  International  Friendship,  and  the  continuing 
efforts  to  mobilize  the  religious  forces  of  the  country  to 
work  with  sustained  vigor  for  building  up  other  agencies 
than  war  for  the  settlement  of  international  disputes,  are 
cases  in  point.  Beginning  with  the  observance  of  a  Sun¬ 
day  in  June,  1921,  as  “Disarmament  Day”  the  program 
included  the  preparation  of  material  for  pastors  on  the 
present  armament  situation  in  the  light  of  Christian  prin¬ 
ciples,  the  concentrating  of  the  attention  of  the  Churches 


•R.  H.  Tawney,  “The  Church  and  Industry,”  New  Republic, 
April  27,  1921. 


CHRISTIANIZING  PUBLIC  OPINION 


141 

on  the  issues  throughout  the  Disarmament  Conference, 
with  a  persistent  campaign  of  education  in  both  the  daily 
and  the  religious  press  as  to  the  concern  of  the  Churches 
in  the  movement.  Such  work  as  this,  aiming  to  arouse 
well-informed  public  opinion  along  Christian  lines,  is  as 
directly  a  responsibility  of  Christian  education  as  the 
maintenance  of  Sunday  Schools.  Indeed,  whatever  we 
teach  formally  in  our  schools  about  Christian  living  de¬ 
pends  for  its  effectiveness  upon  a  social  environment  that 
looks  in  the  same  direction. 

The  effect  of  the  so-called  “Social  Ideals  of  the 
Churches,”  adopted  by  the  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches  in  1908  and  endorsed  by  most  of  the  larger 
denominations,  and  of  the  investigation  of  the  steel  strike 
of  1919  by  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  are  re¬ 
markable  examples  of  the  value  of  concerted  efforts  to 
understand  modern  industry  and  to  hold  the  Christian 
ideal  before  it.  While  the  report  on  the  steel  strike 
was  for  a  time  the  target  of  severe  attack  and  its  con¬ 
clusions  were  regarded  as  impracticable,  later  events  have 
been  a  striking  tribute  to  its  power  in  shaping  public 
opinion.  Two  years  after  its  publication  the  Steel  Cor¬ 
poration  had  announced  the  abolition  of  the  seven-day 
week  and  the  twenty-four  hour  shift,  which  the  Inter¬ 
church  Report  had  called  for.  A  year  later,  as  the  result 
of  the  increasing  tide  of  public  opinion,  in  the  creation 
of  which  the  research  and  educational  work  of  the  Fed¬ 
eral  Council  of  the  Churches  played  no  inconsiderable 
part,  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  announced  a 
beginning  in  the  elimination  of  the  twelve-hour  day. 

Of  especial  significance  is  it  that  provision  is  now  being 
made  for  continuous  rather  than  occasional  efforts  by  the 
Churches  really  to  understand  industrial  and  social  con¬ 
ditions  and  so  to  be  able  to  hold  forth  the  Christian  ideal 
effectively.  The  Federal  Council’s  Commission  on  the 
Church  and  Social  Service  has  initiated  a  research  depart¬ 
ment  which,  among  other  important  functions,  is  issuing 


142  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

a  weekly  information  service  to  the  religious  press  and  to 
interested  Christians,  presenting  carefully  prepared  in¬ 
formation  on  social  questions  as  they  affect  the  ideal  for 
which  the  Churches  stand. 

Such  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Churches  merit  much 
fuller  support  and  recognition  than  they  have  yet  received. 
They  have  thus  far  been  seriously  hampered  by  lack  of 
funds.  The  support  of  such  an  enterprise  ought  to  be 
recognized  for  what  it  really  is — a  great  and  vital  educa¬ 
tional  responsibility  of  the  Church.  In  some  form  or 
other  it  must  be  extended  to  every  area  of  the  world’s 
life  and  work.  To  carry  on  a  patient,  thorough  study  of 
the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  throbbing  social  issues 
of  the  day  and  to  provide  for  the  effective  united  utter¬ 
ance  of  the  common  mind  thus  reached  should  be  an 
indispensable  part  of  the  program  of  any  Church  that 
would  fashion  the  organization  of  society  along  Christian 
lines. 

In  the  last  analysis  the  most  powerful  educational  in¬ 
fluence  which  the  Church  can  exercise  for  shaping  a  * 
Christian  public  opinion  is  its  own  life.  Not  what  the 
Church  says  but  what  it  is  and  does  will  finally  determine 
its  effect  upon  the  individual  and  upon  society.  The 
Word  must  become  flesh  and  dwell  among  us  if  men  are 
to  behold  its  glory.  The  great  educational  mission  of  the 
Church  lies  in  its  being,  in  its  own  corporate  character, 
the  kind  of  brotherhood  which  it  proclaims  as  the  social 
ideal.  Through  its  own  life,  as  an  organized  social  group 
trying  to  live  on  the  plane  of  the  teachings  qf  Jesus,  it 
must  bear  witness  to  society  of  the  power  of  Christianity 
to  establish  new  relationships  among  men,  relationships 
based  on  love  and  transcending  all  barriers  of  nation, 
race,  and  class. 


PART  III 


HOW  THE  CHURCH  SHOULD  ORGANIZE 

ITS  TEACHING 


... 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  THE  LOCAL 

CHURCH :  A  CRITIQUE 

One  cannot  rightly  approach  a  study  of  the  organiza¬ 
tions  through  which  the  Church’s  educational  purpose  is 
to  be  achieved  without  bearing  in  mind  that  no  special 
“agencies”  ever  exhaust  the  field.  The  whole  Church 
and  every  phase  of  its  life  need  to  be  conceived  in  edu¬ 
cational  terms. 

Worship  is,  or  should  be,  of  the  highest  educational 
importance  and  value.  It  is  consciously  directing  the 
minds  and  emotions  of  the  people  toward  certain  ends. 
The  symbolism  of  architecture,  the  forms  of  worship,  the 
structure  of  the  ritual,  the  selections  of  Scripture,  the 
character  of  the  prayers,  the  type  of  music,  the  selection 
of  the  hymns,  all  these  are  based  upon  more  or  less  definite 
religious  presuppositions,  arouse  characteristic  religious 
emotions  and  seek  to  secure  appropriate  attitudes  and 
modes  of  conduct.  Their  combined  and  cumulative  effect 
is  to  mold  the  life  of  the  individual  into  harmony  with 
that  of  the  religious  group  with  which  he  regularly  wor¬ 
ships.  The  fact  that  the  teaching  value  of  these  influences 
is  often  lost  sight  of,  and  that  those  affected  by  them 
are  unconscious  of  being  molded,  does  not  make  them 
any  less  significant. 

The  pulpit ,  as  an  educational  factor,  deserves  far  more 
attention  than  it  usually  receives.  Preaching  is,  or  should 
be,  teaching.  In  most  of  our  churches  the  sermon  is  in¬ 
tended  to  have  a  teaching  value  of  a  more  or  less  definite 
kind.  Altogether  too  much  of  the  preaching  of  today, 

145 


146  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


however — and  of  the  services  of  worship  also — leaves 
the  impression  that  their  teaching  value  is  very  imperfectly 
understood.  The  sermon  fails  to  make  contact  with  the 
life  and  thinking  of  the  hearer,  or  it  deals  too  exclusively 
in  vague  generalities,  or  it  lacks  suggestiveness,  or  its 
structure  is  diffuse  and  scattering,  or  it  leaves  the  hearer 
in  doubt  as  to  just  what  he  is  expected  to  do.  In  other 
words,  the  preacher  is  not  educational  in  method.  Often 
he  is  only  hortatory.  Moreover,  the  pulpit  frequently 
lacks  cumulative  power ;  there  is  no  strong  thread  binding 
together  the  sermons  and  the  services  of  succeeding  Sun¬ 
days  in  one  progressive  unity.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
advertise  a  plan  of  continuity,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  sac¬ 
rifice  timeliness  to  such  a  plan,  but  the  preacher  who 
is  also  a  teacher  will  realize  that  there  is  a  certain  con¬ 
secutiveness  in  human  experience  and  that  the  inspiration 
and  stimulus  of  preaching  must  somehow  become  an 
organic  part  of  the  onflowing  life  of  the  community 
if  it  is  to  affect  it  profoundly  and  permanently. 

But  however  much  may  be  achieved  by  other  influences, 
the  Church  that  really  believes  in  education  will  maintain 
a  school.  As  well  expect  children  to  be  trained  for  citizen¬ 
ship  in  the  state  without  the  provision  of  the  public  school 
as  to  expect  them  to  be  trained  for  Christian  living  and 
service  without  institutions  that  are  specifically  educa¬ 
tional  in  method.  Those  activities  which  have  to  do  more 
distinctly  and  systematically  with  teaching  are  provided,  in 
our  Protestant  churches,  by  means  of  specialized  agencies, 
most  of  which  are  to  be  found  in  connection  with  nearly 
every  local  church.  The  most  common,  of  course,  are 
the  Sunday  School,  the  Young  People’s  Society,  the  Mis¬ 
sion  Study  Group,  the  Daily  Vacation  Bible  School,  the 
Week  Day  School  of  Religious  Education,  the  Pastor’s 
Communicants’  Class,  the  organized  adult  class,  and  the 
Teacher’s  Training  Class.  These  and  other  special 
agencies  we  shall  examine  in  this  chapter. 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  147 


1.  Agencies  Directly  Connected  with  the  Church 

1.  The  Sunday  School. — The  oldest  specialized  teach¬ 
ing  agency  of  the  Church,  and  the  broadest  in  scope, 
whether  in  respect  to  ages  served,  material  used  in  in¬ 
struction,  or  teaching  methods  employed,  is  the  Sunday 
School.  Yet  the  Sunday  School  itself  is  of  comparatively 
recent  origin.  Originally  planned  as  a  missionary  or 
philanthropic  agency,  seeking  to  preoccupy  the  time  and 
thought  of  idle,  ignorant,  or  vicious  youth,  its  scope  and 
purpose  have  so  expanded  in  recent  years  that  it  now 
seeks  to  minister  to  all  ages  and  in  its  objectives  includes 
evangelism,  biblical  instruction,  instruction  in  missions, 
training  in  worship,  in  social  service,  in  benevolent  giv¬ 
ing,  in  the  duties  of  Church  membership  and  leadership 
within  the  Church,  and  in  habits  of  right  conduct.  Many 
of  the  best  Sunday  Schools  now  have  elaborate  curricula, 
and  in  some  instances  also  extensive  programs  for  en¬ 
listing  activity  and  expressing  Christian  purpose  in  wor¬ 
ship  and  service.  It  has  been,  and  is,  more  than  any  other 
agency,  the  Church’s  channel  of  religious  education. 

Until  recently  there  was  little  recognition  of  the 
differing  capacities  and  needs  of  the  different  ages, 
such  as  we  have  considered  in  previous  chapters.  There 
was  almost  no  provision  for  the  teaching  of  missions  or 
of  the  history  and  work  of  the  Church  or  for  training 
in  worship.  There  was  only  the  scantiest  attention  to 
self-expression  and  service.  A  meager,  ill-adapted  me¬ 
chanical  system  of  ‘‘uniform  lessons”  was  the  entire 
program.  When  at  last  the  demand  for  graded  lessons 
and  modern  educational  methods  could  no  longer  be  with¬ 
stood,  the  new  system  was  obliged  to  win  its  way  against 
prejudice  and  compress  itself  into  the  brief  time  on  Sun¬ 
day  which  custom  had  decreed  was  sufficient.  Teachers 
who  knew  only  the  stereotyped  plan  of  verse  exposition, 
fastened  on  them  by  long  experience  with  uniform  lessons, 
made  frequent  failure  of  graded  lesson  teaching,  which 


148  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


assumed  an  entirely  different  aim,  approach,  and  method. 
Superintendents,  accustomed  only  to  mass  management, 
drill  methods,  and  “inspirational”  talks,  found  themselves 
helpless  when  confronted  with  a  situation  which  involved 
careful  adjustment  of  all  the  processes  of  teaching  and 
administration  to  the  requirements  of  graded  groups. 
The  leaders  of  training  classes  for  teachers  declared  it 
was  “impossible”  longer  to  maintain  the  teachers’  meet¬ 
ing.  Buildings  containing  only  one  or  two  or  three  large 
rooms,  in  which  whole  departments  were  accustomed  to 
meet,  did  not  lend  themselves  to  the  quiet  intensive  teach¬ 
ing  of  carefully  graded  classes.  It  is  not  surprising,  there¬ 
fore,  that  thousands  of  schools  are  still  relatively  un¬ 
touched  by  the  newer  developments. 

■  -«i 

When  one  looks  back  over  our  forty  years  of  rela¬ 
tively  barren  teaching  during  which  the  “uniform”  habit 
was  fastened  upon  the  churches  of  practically  every  com¬ 
munity,  and  when  one  realizes  that  the  churches  believed 
for  more  than  a  generation  that  this  was  all  that  is  neces¬ 
sary  for  the  religious  development  of  youth,  he  begins 
to  understand  why  it  is  that  the  cross-section  of  young 
manhood  brought  together  by  the  selective  draft  could 
be  so  pitifully  ignorant  and  undeveloped  in  their  religious 
life.1 

A  new  era  has  now  begun  in  which  a  really  educational 
procedure  is  becoming  established.  Yet  our  prevailing 
assumption  is  that  the  entire  program  is  still  to  be 
carried  out  in  a  single  hour  on  Sunday,  when  practically 
the  whole  constituency  is  assembled  at  once.  This  custom 
makes  the  largest  possible  demand  upon  the  church  in 
respect  to  equipment  and  teaching  force,  for  it  is  obvious 
that  a  smaller  number  of  rooms  and  a  smaller  number 
of  teachers  would  suffice,  provided  classes  were  permitted 
to  meet  at  different  times  and  thus  make  use  of  the  same 
rooms  and  equipment,  and  provided  the  same  teacher 
could  be  induced  to  teach  several  different  class-groups 


1  See  p.  36. 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  149 

successively.  Moreover,  the  attempt  to  telescope  the  whole 
teaching  of  the  church  into  the  same  hour  on  Sunday, 
aside  from  many  other  obvious  difficulties,  creates  an  im¬ 
possible  situation  for  the  pupil.  This  condition  may  be 
indicated  graphically  somewhat  as  follows : 


The  Sunday  School 
Session 

Opening 
period : 

15-20  min. 


Lesson 
period: 
30-35  min. 


Closing 
period : 
5-10  min. 


Into  this  period  are  thrown  such 
acts  of  worship  as  the  school 
provides,  interspersed  with  drill 
in  singing,  or  in  memory  work, 
words  of  exhortation,  member¬ 
ship  contests,  notices,  missionary 
talks,  the  taking  of  an  offering, 
and  other  items.  The  program 
is  generally  in  charge  of  the 
superintendent,  who  is  bom¬ 
barded  with  requests  from  vari¬ 
ous  quarters. 

The  “lesson”  is  itself  a  com¬ 
posite  product.  The  outline  of 
the  course  is  determined  by  the 
interdenominational  lesson  com¬ 
mittee;  the  form  of  presentation 
is  provided  in  helps  prepared  by 
denominational  editors  and  pub¬ 
lishers  ;  the  methods  of  teach¬ 
ing  and  organization  are  sug¬ 
gested.  by  denominational  and 
interdenominational  secretaries 
and  field  workers,  all  working 
more  or  less  independently  and 
not  always  in  harmony. 

In  the  closing  period  acts  of 
worship  compete  for  attention 
with  statistical  and  business  de¬ 
tails. 


Seldom  is  any  unity  of  theme  attempted  in  the  period 
devoted  to  worship;  still  less  any  correlation  of  the  wor¬ 
ship  with  the  work  of  the  lesson  period.  Indeed,  the 
worship  itself  is  too  often  undifferentiated  from  the  rest 
of  the  session.  The  work  of  the  lesson  period  suffers 
from  lack  of  any  effective  supervision  locally,  as  well  as 
from  the  confusion  caused  by  suggestions  which  come 


150  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

from  various  outside  sources  unrelated  to  each  other  and 
sometimes  inconsistent  with  each  other.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  the  pupil,  the  hour  devoted  to  his  religious  in¬ 
struction  is  too  often  an  hour  filled  with  a  mass  of  un¬ 
related,  unorganized  details  and  it  is  small  wonder  that 
his  religious  ideas  are  vague  and  confused.  The  marvel 
is  that,  under  the  conditions  which  have  obtained  in  most 
Sunday  Schools,  anything  positive  and  constructive  is 
actually  carried  over  into  his  daily  life  and  behavior. 

The  new  influences  that  are  now  being  felt  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  Sunday-School  movement  have  been 
suggested  in  an  earlier  chapter  or  will  be  considered  on 
later  pages. 

(2)  The  Young  People's  Society. — The  movement  com¬ 
monly  known  as  the  Young  People’s  Movement  began 
to  spread  among  the  Churches  during  the  early  eighties.2 
Three  characteristic  features  are  found  in  most  local 
groups;  training  in  worship  and  in  the  ability  to  speak 
upon  religious  themes,  especially  regarding  aspects  of 
personal  religious  experience;  training  in  methods  of  or¬ 
ganization  and  business-like  procedure ;  and  training  in  the 
planning  of  social  gatherings  and  in  the  promotion  of 
good  fellowship.  As  originally  conceived,  the  Young  Peo¬ 
ple’s  Society  was  purely  a  local  agency,  a  feature  of  the 
life  of  the  local  Church,  and  its  activities  were  planned 
by  local  leaders.  As  the  movement  spread,  these  indi¬ 
vidual  societies  united  to  form  local  unions,  these  later 
combining  into  state  and  national  organizations.  Gradu¬ 
ally,  and  quite  naturally,  leadership  became  centralized 
and  programs  for  local  use  were  prepared  and  issued  from 
the  national  office. 

2  The  first  Christian  Endeavor  Society  was  organized  by  the 
Rev.  Frances  E.  Clark  in  the  Williston  Congregational  Church, 
Portland,  Maine,  in  February,  1881.  The  Epworth  League 
(Methodist)  grew  out  of  the  Oxford  Leagues  organized  by 
Bishop  Vincent  and  indorsed  by  the  General  Conference  in  1888. 
The  Baptist  Young  People’s  Union  was  started  in  Kansas  in  1887. 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  151 

It  was  also  only  natural  that  many  who  had  found  help 
in  the  organization,  or  who  had  themselves  proved  helpful 
to  it,  should  continue  as  loyal  supporters  of  the  local 
society  and  participants  in  its  activities  after  they  had 
passed  quite  beyond  the  limits  of  the  age-period  for 
which  these  activities  were  originally  intended.  Thus, 
while  these  activities  were  designed  to  train  young  peo¬ 
ple  for  Church  membership  and  responsibility,  the  leaders 
have  met  a  very  practical  difficulty  in  accomplishing  the 
feat  known  to  educators  as  “transfer  of  training”;  that 
is  to  say,  it  does  not  follow  that  because  a  young  person 
is  active  and  proficient  in  the  work  of  a  Young  People’s 
Society  he  will  be  loyal  and  proficient  and  active  in  the 
work  of  the  Church  in  other  directions.  Indeed,  not¬ 
withstanding  the  motto,  “For  Christ  and  the  Church,”  it 
has  not  infrequently  happened  that  young  people  have 
resented  appeals  for  loyalty  to  the  general  services  of  the 
Church  and  pastors  have  felt  that  the  Young  People’s 
Society  had  come  to  be  a  kind  of  rival  of  the  Church 
of  which  theoretically  it  is  a  part. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  natural  that  far-seeing  lead¬ 
ers  should  have  an  eye  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  society 
by  the  enlisting  of  new  recruits.  To  this  end  societies 
have  been  organized  of  groups  just  younger,  known  as 
Intermediate  and  Junior  Societies,  respectively,  a  part 
of  whose  purpose  is  to  serve  as  “feeders”  for  the  Senior 
Societies.  The  program  for  these  younger  groups  also 
is  provided  from  the  central  office  and  does  not  differ 
radically  from  the  program  for  the  senior  group,  except 
that  the  younger  groups  are  generally  held  under  closer 
supervision  by  some  adult  person.  Thus  the  methods  pri¬ 
marily  intended  for  a  particular  age-group  are  often  per¬ 
petuated  after  the  time  for  that  kind  of  training  has 
passed,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  are  projected  downward 
to  younger  groups  too  immature  to  profit  by  them. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  recent  educational  movements, 
an  expansion  of  program  has  taken  place  both  in  the 


152  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Young  People’s  Societies  and  in  the  Sunday  School. 
The  latter  agency  has  recognized  the  necessity  of  sup¬ 
plying  opportunity  for  social  expression  and  group  ac¬ 
tivity,  in  close  connection  with  the  regular  Sunday  School 
teaching.  A  new  emphasis  is  also  being  placed  upon 
training  in  worship  in  the  Sunday  School  and  programs 
of  worship  are  being  prepared  with  more  care.  In  many 
Sunday  Schools  the  young  people’s  classes  are  organized 
and  are  devoting  themselves  to  various  forms  of  social 
service  or  to  missionary  undertakings  in  connection  with 
their  class  work.  At  the  same  time,  Young  People’s  So¬ 
cieties,  particularly  in  certain  denominations,  have  em¬ 
barked  upon  more  extensive  programs  of  Bible  study, 
Church  history,  community  study,  or  mission  study.  The 
result  of  such  expansion,  under  separate  leadership,  has 
been  to  create  a  feeling  of  rivalry  between  sister  agencies 
in  the  local  Church  and  to  stimulate  competition  between 
them  for  membership  among  the  same  young  people.  The 
state  of  tension  thus  created  has  sometimes  become  acute, 
with  respect  both  to  the  local  groups  and  to  the  more 
distant  and  widely  separated  state  or  national  leaders. 

Some  of  the  tendencies  noted  are  inherent  in  most  or¬ 
ganizations — such  as  the  tendency  to  magnify  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  organization  out  of  proportion  to  the 
interests  of  the  persons  whose  needs  it  is  intended  to  serve, 
and  the  tendency  to  become  mechanical  in  the  use  of 
stereotyped  methods.  Some  are  the  result  of  a  growing 
sense  of  responsibility  for  providing  religious  instruction 
and  training — such  as  the  tendency  toward  overlapping 
of  activities  and  programs  and  toward  rivalry  between 
sister  organizations.  Nevertheless,  it  is  now  recognized 
that  the  situation  is  unfortunate,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  young  person  who  is  being  taught  and  trained,  and 
makes  for  confusion.  For  “it  is  not  sufficient  that  all 
the  young  people  of  the  parish  should  have  opportunities 
for  instruction,  worship,  expression,  and  recreation.  One 
should  have  the  feeling  that  they  are  being  offered  as 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  153 

elements  in  a  single  program  conducted  by  a  single  agency. 
There  should  be  a  natural  relation  between  the  service 
undertaken  and  the  content  of  the  instructional  courses ; 
and  if  this  relationship  is  to  seem  vital,  both  must  ema¬ 
nate  from  the  same  source.  Neither  should  the  devotional 
life  be  a  thing  apart.  People  are  never  merely  ‘conse¬ 
crated’;  they  are  consecrated  to  a  cause,  or  a  person,  or 
not  at  all.  The  more  the  devotional  agency  is  divorced 
from  the  agencies  of  activity  and  of  instruction,  the 
greater  will  be  the  tendency  to  produce  an  unreal  and 
abnormal  type  of  experience,  in  which  young  people  seek 
to  ‘testify’  according  to  stereotyped  forms,  and  to  ‘recon¬ 
secrate’  themselves  in  various  vague  ways.  When  the 
agency  that  directs  the  devotional  life  is  the  same  that 
directs  the  social,  expressional,  and  instructional  activi¬ 
ties,  there  will  be  much  growing  out  of  these  other  in¬ 
terests  about  which  to  testify,  consecration  will  become 
more  genuine  and  sane,  and  the  inter-relationship  between 
these  religious  needs  of  youth  will  appear  more  clearly.”  8 

Various  efforts  have  been  made  to  secure  a  closer  co¬ 
ordination  between  the  programs  of  Sunday  School  and 
Young  People’s  Society.  These  may  be  reduced  to  fous 
principal  types,  presented  in  an  ascending  scale :* *  4 

“(a)  The  most  common  position — though  universally 
opposed  by  religious  educators — is  that  which  permits 
and  sanctions  absolute  unrelatedness  of  organizations, 
without  any  consciousness  of  unity  in  aim,  without  any 
singleness  of  plan,  without  regard  to  neglected  areas,  with¬ 
out  concern  for  overlapping. 

“(b)  A  second  attitude  marks  a  slight  advancement;  a 
difference  in  function  among  the  various  agencies  is  quite 
clearly  recognized,  even  though  no  provision  is  made  for 

8  Blashfield,  “Young  People  and  Church  School,”  Religious 

Education,  April,  1920,  p.  95- 

4  Lobingier,  “Work  with  Young  People,”  Religious  Education, 
June,  1920,  p.  ISS- 


154  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


coordination  in  the  matter  of  organization.  According 
to  this  plan  it  is  assumed  that  the  Sunday-School  class  is 
for  instruction;  the  Young  People’s  Society  for  expres¬ 
sion;  both  for  worship;  another  club  perhaps  for  recrea¬ 
tion,  etc.  The  first  difficulty  with  such  a  ‘general  under¬ 
standing’  is  that  it  cannot  but  prove  ineffective  because 
of  the  lack  of  a  unifying  agency  that  will  see  each  part 
of  the  plan  in  relation  to  the  whole,  and  proceed  to  fill 
the  gaps  in  the  plan  as  a  whole.  Another  difficulty 
with  such  a  plan  is  that  it  is  based  upon  a  false  psy¬ 
chology  and  teaches  a  wrong  view  of  the  educational 
process ;  it  makes  for  disunity  in  the  educative  task.  It 
sees  no  interrelation  between  instruction  and  expression, 
or  between  worship  and  activity.  It  believes  in  both  doing 
and  learning,  but  it  does  not  consider  that  one  learns  by 
doing,  and  proceeds  to  do  more  efficiently  as  a  result 
of  the  learning.  It  believes  in  both  the  devotional  life 
and  the  expressional  life,  but  it  fails  to  develop  the  de¬ 
votional  life  from  the  directed  activities  and  experiences 
that  the  Church  has  offered.  The  wall  of  partition  set 
up  between  different  organizations  with  a  more  or  less 
insistent  emphasis  upon  distinctiveness  of  function  is 
scarcely  consistent  with  our  modern  unitary  view  of  life. 

“(c)  A  third  attitude  toward  the  question  of  correla¬ 
tion  is  that  which  may  be  called  the  ‘Council’  or  ‘Federa¬ 
tion’  plan,  advocated  as  a  means  of  bringing  together  the 
various  organizations  of  the  local  Church  to  work  as  a 
unit,  while  still  preserving  the  integrity  of  each  partici¬ 
pating  group.  The  Council,  in  each  local  Church,  is  com¬ 
posed  of  one  or  two  representatives  from  each  organized 
group  of  young  people,  together  with  the  pastor  and  one 
or  two  others  as  members  ex  officio.  It  reviews  the 
programs  of  each  constituent  group,  thus  promoting  mu¬ 
tual  understanding.  It  aims  also  at  coordinated  activity, 
including  a  unified  plan  for  social  entertainments,  a  more 
inclusive  instructional  program,  and  a  wider  enlistment 
in  various  forms  of  expressional  activity.  Competition  is 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  155 

diminished,  overlapping  of  function  is  reduced,  and  the 
number  of  neglected  young  people  is  lessened. 

“(d)  Still  others  who  advocate  the  correlation  of  young 
people’s  work  are  urging  the  establishment  of  a  Young 
People’s  Department  of  the  Church,  that,  being  more  than 
a  federation  of  groups,  shall  be  a  single  group  completely 
unified  in  its  organization,  with  such  opportunities  pro¬ 
vided  as  young  people  of  the  later  adolescent  years  need, 
in  instruction,  worship,  expression,  and  recreation.  In 
some  instances  the  department  meets  for  hours  Sun¬ 
day  morning,  30  minutes  being  devoted  to  worship,  30 
minutes  to  instruction,  and  30  minutes  to  an  expressional 
session  conserving  the  values  of  the  former  Young  Peo¬ 
ple’s  Society  meeting.  In  other  instances  the  Young 
People’s  Department  meets  in  the  morning  for  instruction, 
and  in  the  evening  for  expression,  with  elements  of  wor¬ 
ship  in  each  of  the  sessions  ;  recreational  activities  are 
conducted  during  the  week  and  social  service  activities 
are  also  undertaken.  There  is  but  one  Young  People’s 
Department  or  organization  of  the  Church,  however,  with 
a  united  constituency  and  a  single  group  of  officers,  con¬ 
ducting  its  well-rounded  program.  It  is  erroneous  to 
assume  that  when  an  adjustment  such  as  this  is  made, 
one  group  is  perpetuating  itself  while  all  others  are  being 
merged  into  it.  Rather  is  it  true  that  all  the  agencies 
are  being  unified  into  the  Young  People’s  Department  of 
the  Church,  organized  for  a  complete  program  of  religious 
education.” 

3.  Groups  for  Missionary  Education. — Closely  inter¬ 
woven  with  the  history  of  the  Young  People’s  Society 
is  the  history  of  the  Young  People’s  Missionary  Move¬ 
ment.  From  its  beginnings  in  the  Student  Volunteer 
Movement,  which  sought  to  enlist  young  people  for  serv¬ 
ice  in  foreign  lands,  there  has  grown  a  program  of  mis¬ 
sionary  education  which  is  now  a  recognized  phase  of  the 
Church’s  teaching  work  for  all  ages  in  nearly  all  Protes- 


156  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tant  Churches  and  comprehends  within  its  scope  the  win¬ 
ning  of  recruits  for  service  both  at  home  and  abroad 
and  the  consecration  of  money  and  other  resources  as 
well  as  the  dedication  of  life.  Special  courses  of  study 
dealing  with  the  peoples,  religions,  and  problems  of  vari¬ 
ous  lands  have  been  prepared  and  teachers  have  been 
trained  in  summer  conferences  for  the  organization  and 
conduct  of  mission  study  classes  in  the  local  churches. 
Most  of  the  denominational  missionary  societies  now  have 
educational  secretaries  who  are  charged  with  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  stimulating  the  local  church.  They  cooperate  ef¬ 
fectively  in  the  Missionary  Education  Movement.  The 
work  of  the  women’s  missionary  societies  has  long  included 
important  educational  activities  both  for  women  and 
young  people.  It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  ade¬ 
quately  the  influence  which  has  been  exerted  upon  the 
life  of  the  Churches  through  all  these  agencies. 

Thoughtful  observers  feel,  however,  that  the  time  has 
come  for  a  readjustment  of  the  plans  by  which  it  is  hoped 
to  provide  every  young  person  with  a  reasonable  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  peoples  of  the  earth  and  their  needs, 
as  well  as  with  an  adequate  motive  for  enlistment  in  the 
missionary  enterprise.  Great  changes  have  been  taking 
place  whereby  peoples  have  been  brought  into  closer  and 
closer  contact.  The  very  persistence  of  civilization  is  now 
seen  to  be  threatened  unless  the  principles  of  Jesus  can 
become  dominant  in  the  institutions,  the  national  life,  and 
the  international  relationships  of  people  everywhere,  as 
well  as  in  their  individual  thinking  and  conduct.  So  the 
missionary  task  of  the  Church  looms  larger  than  at  any 
previous  moment.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  to  be  but  an¬ 
other  name  to  designate  its  entire  constructive  activity.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  any  person  today  who  lacks 
an  interest  in  his  fellowmen  of  whatever  race  or  color 
or  speech,  who  does  not  feel  a  thrill  of  sympathy  with 
their  need  whether  it  be  in  Russia,  Armenia,  China, 
Africa,  or  the  islands  of  the  sea,  and  an  impulse  to  share 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  157 

with  all  men  everywhere  the  blessings  that  have  come  to 
the  more  favored,  can  hardly  claim  to  be  a  follower  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

The  conviction  that  missions  is  only  another  name  for 
Christianity  in  action  and  that  all  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  must  look  toward  the  development  of  the  mission¬ 
ary  spirit  is  no  longer  confined  to  the  official  secretaries 
of  missionary  boards.  Moreover,  the  newer  education 
emphasizes  the  fact  that  there  is  no  real  teaching  that 
stops  short  of  expression  in  conduct  and  action.  There¬ 
fore  all  the  teaching  of  the  Church  must  be  missionary,  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  to  develop  motive  and  sympathy  and 
find  its  outlet  in  service.  In  the  development  of  the 
Sunday  School  there  has  been  a  growing  effort  in  re¬ 
cent  years  to  provide  opportunity  for  such  expression 
in  close  connection  with  the  regular  courses  of  instruction. 

But  just  at  the  moment  when  there  is  coming  to  be  an 
enlarging  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  including  mis¬ 
sionary  instruction  as  an  integral  part  of  the  Church’s 
teaching,  and  when  there  exist  in  greater  abundance  than 
ever  before  the  materials  for  study  and  probably  more 
persons  than  ever  before  trained  for  the  conduct  of 
mission  study  classes,  at  this  moment  of  opportunity 
the  teaching  of  missions  is  in  serious  danger  of  going 
by  default  through  sheer  lack  of  correlation  of  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  various  teaching  agencies  of  the  Church. 
Let  us  consider  some  of  the  factors  in  the  situation. 

(a)  The  missionary  agencies  are  handicapped,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  the  fact  that  they  must  compete  with 
other  agencies,  already  in  the  field,  for  a  share  of  the 
child’s  time  and  attention.  Even  if  they  attempt  to 
work  through  the  Sunday  School  and  the  Young  People’s 
Society,  so  far  as  the  gathering  of  the  study  group  is 
concerned,  the  mission  study  class  and  its  course  of  study 
are  apt  to  be  regarded  as  an  ‘‘extra,”  for  which  young 
people,  unless  already  vitally  interested,  have  scant  time. 

(b)  The  course  of  mission  study  is  uncorrelated,  either 


158  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


with  the  course  of  Sunday-School  instruction,  or  with  the 
program  of  the  Young  People’s  Society.  In  the  case  of 
the  former,  as  we  have  seen,  the  effect  of  introducing 
special  missionary  topics  from  time  to  time  is  merely  to 
add  to  the  mental  confusion  caused  in  the  mind  of  the 
pupil  as  a  result  of  overcrowding  a  brief  weekly  session 
with  a  variety  of  unrelated  information.  In  the  case  of 
the  Young  People’s  Society,  mission  study  suffers,  along 
with  the  rest  of  religious  education,  from  the  uncertainty 
and  competition  which  too  frequently  result  from  the  lack 
of  correlation  between  the  programs  of  this  agency  and 
those  of  the  organized  Sunday-School  class.  And  in  either 
case  there  is  failure,  on  the  one  hand,  to  develop  sys¬ 
tematically  a  motive  for  the  forms  of  expression  sug¬ 
gested  in  the  mission-study  class ;  or  else  there  is  failure 
to  connect  the  form  of  expression  with  the  motives  and 
enthusiasms  which  may  be  aroused  in  the  teaching  of 
the  Sunday-School  class. 

(c)  Missionary  education,  as  yet,  is  largely  ungraded 
and  consequently  lacking  in  any  principle  of  progression. 
It  is  true  that  there  are  children’s  books  and  young  peo¬ 
ple’s  books  and  books  for  adults.  But  the  publication 
scheme  has  been  a  “uniform”  scheme,  centering  the  at¬ 
tention  of  the  whole  Church  and  all  ages  upon  a  particu¬ 
lar  field  or  phase  of  work  each  year,  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  this  may  not  be  the  best  method  of  developing 
through  a  series  of  years  an  intelligent  interest  in  and 
responsibility  for  the  people  of  all  countries.  Today, 
indeed,  forward  steps  are  beginning  to  be  taken.  Espe¬ 
cially  deserving  of  notice  is  the  recent  adoption  of  the 
policy  by  the  Joint  Committee  on  Home  Missionary 
Literature  (representing  the  Council  of  Women  for  Home 
Missions  and  the  Missionary  Education  Movement)  of 
preparing  the  material  for  juniors  in  a  three-year  cycle. 
This  is  based  upon  a  consideration  of  the  interests  and 
needs  of  the  pupil  rather  than  upon  the  maintenance  of  a 
uniform  theme  for  the  year.  But  there  has  been,  as 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  159 

yet,  no  adequate  study  of  the  natural  approach  of  child¬ 
hood  and  youth  to  the  missionary  enterprise,  no  adequate 
research  as  to  how  one  may  best  be  introduced  to  these 
wider  and  widening  relationships,  no  sufficient  formulation 
of  the  method  by  which  sympathies  may  be  progressively 
broadened,  no  complete  system  of  training  suggested 
whereby  the  child,  boy  and  girl,  youth  and  adult,  may 
be  brought  into  intelligent  and  increasing  participation  in 
various  forms  of  altruistic  and  vicarious  service.  Mis¬ 
sionary  education  needs  to  be  incorporated  into  the  gen¬ 
eral  program,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  is  needed 
at  every  point  in  that  program  and  not  merely  as  an  addi¬ 
tional  phase  of  education. 

What  applies  to  missionary  education  is  equally  true 
of  training  for  social  service,  for  there  is  -  no  essential 
difference  between  missions,  broadly  conceived,  and  Chris¬ 
tian  social  service  rightly  understood.  The  aim  of  each 
is  to  change  not  only  lives  but  the  conditions  of  living, 
and  each  presupposes  the  Christian  motive,  sympathy, 
good-will,  the  willingness  to  sacrifice  self  in  order  to  serve 
others.  The  distinction  here,  like  the  distinction  between 
home  and  foreign  missions,  is  artificial  and  chiefly  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  administrative  convenience. 

4.  The  Pastor's  Communicants'  Class. — The  Episcopa¬ 
lian  and  Lutheran  Churches,  and  a  few  others,  have  the 
custom  of  confirming  children  who  have  reached  the  age 
of  twelve  years  or  so,  and  of  holding  catechetical  classes 
in  preparation  for  confirmation.  The  practice  of  organiz¬ 
ing  communicants,  classes  has  become  much  more  com¬ 
mon  in  recent  years  among  other  religious  bodies  also. 
There  is  no  question  but  that  the  Church  should  seize 
upon  the  special  opportunity  offered  by  the  spiritual 
awakening  which  naturally  occurs  in  the  early  years  of 
adolescence  to  present  to  the  boys  and  girls  the  claims 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  His  Church  upon  their  loyalty. 
The  failure  to  do  this  has  undoubtedly  lost  to  the  Church 


160  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  devotion  and  service  of  thousands  who  might  easily 
have  been  enlisted  in  its  enterprises,  and  the  loss  has 
by  no  means  been  reclaimed  by  subsequent  campaigns  of 
adult  evangelism. 

As  a  rule,  however,  pastor’s  classes  fall  far  short  of 
rendering  their  best  service.  There  are  still,  it  appears, 
instances  where  the  discredited  method  of  rote-memoriza¬ 
tion  is  followed,  after  the  manner  of  the  old-fashioned 
catechisms,  a  series  of  theological  questions  being  pro¬ 
pounded  whose  more  or  less  abstract  answers  are  to  be 
committed  to  memory.  Little  is  to  be  said,  of  course,  in 
defense  of  such  a  plan,  for  however  successful  the  leader 
may  be  in  exercising  the  memories  of  the  pupils,  this  suc¬ 
cess  does  not  indicate  in  any  degree  the  measure  of  con¬ 
viction  or  purpose  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil. 

Even  where  the  leader  follows  the  better  method  of 
informal  discussion,  his  outline  is  still  too  generally  a 
survival  of  the  old  habit  of  abstract  theologizing.  One 
of  the  most  recent  outlines  sent  out  from  the  evangelistic 
committee  of  a  denomination  that  prides  itself  upon  its 
interest  and  achievement  in  education  contains  the  fol¬ 
lowing  topics :  I.  Being  a  Christian.  II.  The  Bible. 
III.  Prayer.  IV.  The  Kingdom.  V.  The  Christian 
Church.  VI.  Church  Organization.  VII.  Why  Join  the 
Church?  Now  these  are  all  subjects  concerning  which 
the  mature  Christian  ought  to  have  clear-cut  convictions, 
but  they  cannot  all  be  brought  profitably  to  the  attention 
of  young  people  between  the  ages  of  12  and  15.  They 
should  be  distributed  over  a  wider  range  of  years.  For 
example,  the  boy  or  girl  of  13  or  14  will  be  deeply  in¬ 
terested  in  the  personal  aspects  of  the  Christian  life.  The 
object  of  the  class  for  these  ages  should  be,  therefore,  to 
make  clear,  through  informal  discussion,  the  character 
of  Jesus,  as  the  Ideal  Person ;  His  consciousness  of  God, 
His  intimate  fellowship  with  God  in  prayer,  His  consistent 
and  unswerving  purpose  to  do  God’s  will,  His  life  of 
self-sacrifice,  His  sympathy  with  suffering  humanity, 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  161 


His  perfect  obedience,  His  courage,  His  patience,  His 
spiritual  majesty,  His  winsomeness,  and  His  wis¬ 
dom.  And  the  result  to  be  aimed  at  should  be  the 
awakening  of  admiration  for  Him  and  the  commitment 
of  the  self  to  Him  as  Ideal  and  Savior.  If  the  Bible 
is  touched  upon  in  this  connection  it  should  be  as  the 
utterances  of  the  great  souls  with  whom  Jesus  was 
in  spiritual  fellowship,  and  as  containing  the  story  of 
Jesus  Himself  and  His  teachings.  If  the  Church  is  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  discussion  it  should  be  to  develop  in  the 
pupils  a  sense  of  comradeship  with  the  community  group 
composed  of  those  who  love  Jesus  Christ  and  are  striving 
to  learn  and  to  do  the  will  of  God  as  He  has  taught.  This 
is  certainly  not  the  time  to  discuss  abstract  doctrines  or 
the  mechanical  aspects  of  Church  organization. 

It  is  not  until  mid-adolescence  is  reached,  and  passed, 
that  there  begins  to  be  a  taste  for  the  more  philosophical 
or  “doctrinal”  teaching — say  at  about  16  to  18  years  of 
age.  Perhaps  it  is  later  still  before  there  is  a  desire  to 
know  how  things  are  done,  that  is,  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  theory  of  organization.  Then  is  the  time  for 
the  discussion  of  the  structure  of  the  Bible  and  its  in¬ 
fluence,  the  theory  of  prayer,  the  nature  of  faith  and 
salvation,  the  meaning  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  and  its  organization  for  community  and  world 
service.  It  is  not  necessary,  of  course,  to  hold  back  young 
people  from  joining  the  Church  until  all  this  ground  has 
been  covered.  It  is  natural  and  right  for  them  to  seek, 
and  be  admitted  to,  membership  at  the  time  of  their  awak¬ 
ening  loyalty  to  Jesus.  The  difficulty  rather  lies  in  the 
fact  that  we  have  conceived  of  this  process  of  pastoral 
training  too  exclusively  in  terms  of  the  Church  organiza¬ 
tion  and  too  little  in  terms  of  the  pupil's  developing  in¬ 
terests  and  needs.  Consequently  we  have  attempted  to 
crowd  into  a  very  brief  space  what  should  be  spread 
over  a  longer  period  of  development.  It  is  neither  pos¬ 
sible  nor  necessary  to  provide  a  young  person  all  at  once 


1 62  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


with  a  complete  equipment  for  Church  membership ;  it 
should  be  provided  as  needed,  a  certain  portion  as  he 
joins  the  Church,  interpreting  to  him  the  meaning  of 
Christian  loyalty,  and  another  portion  when  he  needs  to 
have  a  Christian  philosophy  of  life  for  meeting  his  new 
vocational  responsibilities,  and  another  portion  when  he 
begins  to  be  more  active  in  the  Church  organization  so 
that  he  may  understand  how  to  make  his  activity  count.5 

Clearly  there  ought  to  be  closer  correlation  between  the 
training  in  the  pastor’s  class  and  the  work  of  the  Sunday 
School  and  Young  People’s  Society  and  mission  study 
class.  The  discussion  of  the  meaning  of  personal  loyalty 
to  Jesus  should  come  in  as  close  relationship  as  possible 
to  the  course  of  intensive  study  of  the  life  of  Jesus  in 
the  Sunday  School.  The  theological  discussion  should 
have  as  its  background  the  study  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
and  Paul,  and  would  be  even  more  effective  if  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  the  prophets  and  the  story  of  the  development  of 
Christian  thinking  in  some  of  the  historic  creeds  could 
be  added.  The  discussion  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  of 
Christian  democracy,  of  the  Christian  church  and  its  or¬ 
ganization,  should  be  in  connection  with  a  more  extended 
study  of  Christian  vocation,  missions,  and  social  service. 
The  pastor  should  seek,  in  the  communicants’  class,  not 
to  introduce  into  the  lives  of  his  young  people  something 
different  and  unrelated  to  the  rest  of  their  religious  train¬ 
ing,  but  rather  to  bring  to  culmination  in  their  experience 
the  ideals  and  impulses  and  enthusiasms  which  are  engen¬ 
dered  through  the  teaching  of  the  Church’s  whole  cur¬ 
riculum.  He  must  know,  therefore,  what  they  are  being 
taught,  and  when  these  various  courses  are  being  studied, 
that  he  may,  at  the  opportune  moment,  perform  his  own 
most  delicate  but  essential  part  in  bringing  all  the  rest  of 
the  teaching  to  its  full  fruition. 


8Cf.  Chapter  IV. 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  163 

5.  The  Daily  Vacation  Bible  School. — The  need  for 
an  increased  amount  of  time  for  religious  education  has 
led  to  a  rapid  development,  during  the  last  few  years, 
of  two  movements,  one  for  the  use  of  a  part  of  the  sum¬ 
mer  vacation,  the  other  for  claiming  certain  week-day 
hours  regularly  for  religious  teaching.  With  the  latter 
we  shall  deal  at  some  length  in  the  following  chapter. 

The  character  and  methods  of  daily  vacation  Bible 
schools  have  varied  widely  and  the  aim  has  often  not  been 
clear  or  definite.  In  a  great  number  the  term  “Bible 
school”  has  been  rather  misleading.  They  have  not  aimed 
principally  to  teach  the  Bible  or  religion,  although  devo¬ 
tional  exercises  and  Bible  stories  have  had  a  minor  place ; 
their  purpose  has  Been  chiefly  to  gather  idle  or  neglected 
children  into  the  Churches  and  to  keep  them  busy  or 
amused  in  a  wholesome  way  in  a  wholesome  environment. 
Others  have  developed  an  interesting  program  of  handi¬ 
craft  of  various  kinds.  A  growing  number  have  been 
working  out  a  schedule  in  which  a  fair  share  of  the  time 
is  given  to  definite  religious  teaching,  along  with  the 
recreational  features,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  assume 
that  the  development  of  the  schools  will  be  in  this 
direction. 

One  of  the  most  significant  features  of  the  vacation 
school  is  that  it  has  made  an  appeal  to,  and  reached, 
children  not  now  being  reached  by  the  Sunday  School  or 
other  established  agencies. 

The  vacation  school,  however,  has  not  yet  really  found 
its  place  in  relation  to  the  other  agencies.  With  the  rapid 
increase  in  number  and  value  of  the  week-day  schools,  it 
is  highly  important  that  the  vacation  school  should  now 
be  developed  as  a  part  of  an  all-the-year  program  of 
week-day  religious  education,  and  that  the  whole  week¬ 
day  movement  (as  we  shall  see  later)  should  be  correlated 
with  the  Sunday  School  and  the  other  educational  activi¬ 
ties  in  a  complete  and  unified  program. 


164  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

6.  The  Adult  Class  and  Forum. — The  children  and 
youth,  although  they  must  always  fill  the  central  place  in 
the  educational  outlook  of  the  Church  and  are  always 
its  supreme  opportunity,  are  not  the  only  ones  for  whom 
the  Church  has  a  teaching  responsibility.  There  are  still 
the  great  rank  and  file  of  the  Church’s  membership,  the 
men  and  women  who,  though  they  have  reached  adult  life, 
ought  to  be  growing  constantly  in  an  understanding  of 
the  meaning  of  the  Christian  religion  and  in  the  practice 
of  the  Christian  way  of  living.  They  set  before  the 
Church  an  educational  task  too  often  neglected  save  for 
the  work  which  the  pulpit  may  do  in  one  hour  a  week. 
The  adult  class,  meeting  either  Sunday  morning  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  Sunday  School  (in  which  it  had  its 
origin)  or  on  a  week-day  evening,  lends  itself  to  a  great 
variety  of  important  educational  uses.  A  few  Churches 
are  making  effective  use  of  this  method ;  many  more  have 
hardly  begun  to  experiment  with  it,  still  less  to  exhaust 
its  possibilities. 

A  unique  service  can  be  rendered  by  an  adult  class 
in  bringing  parents  together  to  study  the  question  of 
religion  in  the  home,  especially  the  training  of  their  chil¬ 
dren  in  the  religious  life.  If  the  home  really  has  the 
central  place  which  we  have  assigned  it  in  the  whole  task 
of  Christian  education,  nothing  can  be  more  important  for 
the  Church  than  to  assist  parents  in  providing  for  definite 
religious  education  within  the  family.  And,  however  it  be 
accomplished,  there  should  be  abundant  opportunity  for 
parents  to  be  brought  to  understand  the  responsibility 
of  parenthood  and  to  meet  it  intelligently.  This  will  in¬ 
clude  familiarity  with  the  fundamental  facts  of  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  development,  with  the  problems  of  child 
life,  with  the  religious  crises  and  the  best  methods  of 
meeting  them,  with  problems  of  discipline,  with  lists  of 
books  for  children’s  reading,  and  methods  of  vocational 
guidance.  The  Church  may  help  also  to  bring  parents  into 
frequent  contact  with  teachers  in  the  public  schools,  with 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  165 

librarians  and  playground  directors,  as  well  as  with  Sun¬ 
day-School  teachers  and  leaders  of  children’s  and  young 
people’s  organizations. 

The  adult  class  furnishes  an  invaluable  opportunity  for 
helping  people  to  come  to  clear  and  intelligent  un¬ 
derstanding  of  the  central  truths  of  Christianity.  The 
underlying  convictions  which  have  grown  out  of  Chris¬ 
tian  experience  and  have  found  expression  in  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church — faith  in  God,  His  revelation  in  Christ, 
His  presence  in  the  world,  the  meaning  of  the  Cross,  the 
possibility  of  salvation  from  sin,  the  ideal  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  the  hope  of  eternal  life — all  these  need  to  be 
interpreted  so  that  men  shall  have  a  valid  intellectual 
formulation  of  their  religious  experience.  The  Bible  as 
the  book  in  which  this  experience  and  these  convictions 
find  their  clearest  and  most  illuminating  expression  needs 
to  be  explored  year  after  year  by  those  whose  religious 
life  is  to  continue  to  grow  in  strength  and  power. 

It  is  of  fundamental  importance  to  teach  also  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Church  as  the  institution  in  which  the  Christian 
experience  finds  corporate  expression.  At  this  point 
Protestantism  has  been  seriously  defective.  In  its  reaction 
against  the  abuses  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  it  has 
conceived  deep-seated  suspicion  of  institutional  religion. 
Although  certain  branches  of  the  Church,  whose  attitude 
toward  Rome  in  the  Reformation  was  more  conservative, 
have  retained  a  strong  churchly  feeling,  for  the  majority 
of  Protestants  this  is  not  the  case.  The  significance  of 
Christian  institutions  has  not  been  adequately  appre¬ 
hended.  Thus  it  has  come  about  that  in  planning  its 
curriculum  Protestant  religious  instruction  has  paid  scant 
attention  to  what  God  has  been  doing,  through  the  Church, 
since  the  year  100  A.D.  The  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone 
has  been  the  text-book  of  Protestants,  with  the  result 
that  generation  after  generation  have  grown  up  in  almost 
complete  ignorance  of  the  history  of  the  Church  and  the 
forms  in  which  Christianity  finds  organized  expression  in 


1 66  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  world  today.  This  ignorance  cannot  be  allowed  to 
continue.  No  one  can  understand  anything  aright  unless 
he  understands  its  history.  And  to  expect  men  to  be  in¬ 
telligent  Christians  and  good  churchmen  when  they  know 
nothing  of  the  past  from  which  they  have  come  or  of  the 
present  life  and  work  of  the  Church  would  be  as  reason¬ 
able  as  to  expect  men  to  be  good  citizens  who  know 
nothing  of  American  history  and  have  never  studied  the 
development  of  our  own  institutions. 

A  good  point  of  departure  for  such  a  study  is  the  his¬ 
tory  of  missions,  for  missions  furnish  at  once  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  one  of  the  most  instructive  manifes¬ 
tations  of  contemporary  Christianity.  In  foreign  missions 
we  see  the  Christian  Church  making  earnest  with  the  ideal 
of  world-wide  evangelization,  facing  the  divisive  influences 
of  race,  of  class,  of  nationality,  and  grappling  with  them 
in  original  and  courageous  ways.  In  home  missions  we 
find  the  same  difficulties  facing  us  in  even  more  personal 
and  embarrassing  fashion.  The  study  of  modern  Chris¬ 
tian  missions  in  America  will  dispel  the  complacency  of 
many  a  conventional  Christian  and  make  him  realize  that 
there  are  no  more  difficult  fields  in  the  world  than  Ameri¬ 
can  cities  like  New  York  and  Chicago,  where  all  the  races 
of  the  world  meet  and  where  the  problems  of  industrial 
strife,  race  rivalry,  and  national  ambition  confront  us  in 
their  most  extreme  and  perplexing  forms. 

Of  especial  importance  is  a  fuller  understanding  of 
Christian  teaching  in  relation  to  the  great  social  issues  of 
the  present  day.  The  pulpit,  allowing  no  opportunity 
for  the  give-and-take  of  discussion,  has  serious  limitations 
as  an  agency  for  interpreting  the  meaning  of  Christianity 
for  such  mooted  questions  as  face  us  in  our  industrial, 
social,  and  international  life.  The  fundamental  Christian 
principles  must,  of  course,  be  interpreted  from  the  pulpit 
but  their  more  detailed  application  to  concrete  problems 
requires  such  an  opportunity  as  the  adult  class  affords 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  167 

for  discussion  with  those  who  are  having  practical  ex¬ 
perience  with  these  problems  in  their  daily  life. 

Such  a  class  may  sometimes  profitably  adopt  a  “seminar 
method”  and  make  first-hand  inquiries  about  the  pressing 
problems  of  the  community  in  which  they  live — juvenile 
delinquency,  the  public  dance  hall,  the  influence  of  the 
motion-picture  theater,  the  housing  situation,  industrial 
conditions.  Or  a  series  of  addresses  by  men  who  are  ac¬ 
tively  engaged  in  work  for  social  welfare,  followed  by 
opportunity  for  questions  and  discussion,  may  bring  the 
group  face  to  face  with  questions  of  their  community 
life  and  lead  to  new  insights  into  social  duty. 

An  enlargement  of  the  influence  of  the  adult  class  in 
dealing  with  social  questions  in  the  light  of  Christianity 
may  be  found  in  the  open  forum,  now  beginning  to  find  a 
place  in  the  program  of  the  Church.  More  than  the  pulpit, 
even  more  than  the  adult  class,  it  affords  an  opportunity 
for  hearing  the  various  sides  of  a  question,  and  of  se¬ 
curing  the  alert  participation  of  a  large  body  of  people. 
The  very  essence  of  the  forum  idea  is  open-minded 
search  for  truth,  free  from  preconceived  ideas  or  any 
imposition  of  authority.  The  number  of  Churches  using 
this  method  of  teaching,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  still  very 
few,  but  enough  has  been  done  to  demonstrate  its  value. 
It  often  plays  the  unique  role  of  reaching  many  who  do 
not  attend  the  regular  services  of  the  Church  and  are 
quite  uninterested  in  the  ordinary  Bible  class. 

7.  Training  Classes  for  Teachers  and  Leaders. — Hap¬ 
pily  it  is  beginning  to  be  recognized  that  the  teaching  of 
a  Sunday-School  class  involves  something  more  than  a 
desire  to  serve  and  an  interest  in  children.  It  is  a  task 
requiring  technical  training,  accurate  knowledge,  and  a 
high  degree  of  skill.  Churches  generally  are  attempting 
to  provide  training  classes  for  the  development  of  suc¬ 
cessful  teachers  and  a  considerable  number  of  text-books 
have  been  written,  dealing  with  the  various  phases  of  the 


1 68  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


teacher’s  work.  Much  of  this  lies  beyond  the  resources 
of  the  average  local  Church,  so  earnest  effort  is  being  made 
to  supplement  these  resources  through  community  co¬ 
operation,  denominational  supervision,  and  summer 
schools.  The  community  training  schools  now  being  held 
under  some  form  of  cooperation  among  the  religious 
agencies  of  a  city  are  a  great  advance  upon  what  pre¬ 
vailed  even  a  few  years  ago.  Some  of  the  denominational 
summer  schools  are  giving  especial  attention  to  religious 
education.  The  conferences  of  the  Missionary  Education 
Movement,  other  summer  conferences  and  the  Schools 
of  Missions  are  training  leaders  for  mission  study  groups 
in  local  churches. 

This  is  all  excellent,  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  the  method 
of  recruiting  teachers  is  still  more  or  less  haphazard  and 
there  is  almost  no  provision  for  relating  text-book  study 
to  practice *.  teaching.  The  result  of  this  is  largely  to  di¬ 
vorce  theory  from  practice  in  the  application  of  princi¬ 
ples  ;  in  many  instances  the  teacher  follows  along  in  the 
old  grooves,  uninfluenced  by  his  study  in  the  training  class. 
The  church  has  still  to  learn  how  to  incorporate  laboratory 
methods  in  its  training  classes.  As  well  expect  to  make 
a  chemist  by  reading  a  text -book  on  chemistry,  or  an  engi¬ 
neer  by  reading  a  text-book  on  physics  and  mathematics, 
as  to  make  a  teacher  simply  by  studying  a  teacher-train¬ 
ing  text-book. 

The  same  may  be  said,  in  some  measure,  of  the  training 
for  other  forms  of  service.  It  is  customary  to  have  train¬ 
ing  classes  for  the  teaching  of  missions,  and  it  is  held, 
in  theory  at  least,  that  the  leaders  of  Scout  and  Campfire 
groups,  and  of  boys’  and  girls’  clubs,  need  special  prepa¬ 
ration.  But  the  local  Church  is  seldom  able  really  to  pro¬ 
vide  it.  The  method  generally  followed  is  to  place  the 
responsibility  for  leadership  in  the  hands  of  some  young 
man  or  young  woman,  who  is  full  of  enthusiasm  and  who 
is  clever  at  suggesting  “stunts”  but  who  knows  nothing 
of  the  theory  of  education,  nothing  of  what  is  being  con- 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  169 

temporaneously  given  to  the  same  boys  and  girls  in  Sun¬ 
day  School,  and  who  knows  practically  nothing  of  the 
teaching  value  of  the  activities  in  which  the  group  engages. 
One  gains,  no  doubt,  a  certain  facility  in  this  hand-to- 
hand  contact  with  young  lives  and  an  earnest-minded 
young  person  often  is  able  to  inspire  the  boys  and  girls 
to  better  living,  but  lack  of  experienced  and  mature  over¬ 
sight  is  responsible  for  many  failures  and  mistakes.  If 
the  training  of  Sunday-School  teachers  suffers  from  the 
absence  of  laboratory  practice  and  the  divorce  of  theory 
from  experience,  the  training  of  group  leadership — if 
such  it  may  be  called — suffers  from  the  lack  of  text-book 
study  and  the  divorce  of  practice  from  theory. 

The  Church  itself  should  be  a  great  training  school, 
developing  men  and  women  by  means  of  the  responsibili¬ 
ties  it  lays  upon  them.  But  the  Church  is  hardly  conscious 
of  its  teaching  opportunity  at  this  point  and,  lacking  such 
consciousness,  it  permits  the  great  mass  of  its  membership 
to  remain  untrained.  A  few  offices,  such  as  those  of 
deacon,  trustee,  clerk,  treasurer,  or  Sunday-School  super¬ 
intendent,  are  conferred,  as  honors,  upon  men  and  women 
who  are  known  to  be  generally  capable  and  trustworthy. 
But  how  often  is  any  attempt  made  to  train  people  for 
these  positions,  or  any  opportunity  offered  for  learning 
the  technique  of  such  offices?  In  most  cases  it  is  rather 
the  rule  to  retain  in  office  indefinitely  one  who  has  shown 
himself  efficient  and  reliable.  There  is  almost  no  provi¬ 
sion  for  acquainting  the  membership  at  large  with  the 
experience  of  office-holding,  or  even  of  preparing  those 
who  are  to  hold  office  by  a  preliminary  term  of  proba¬ 
tionary  training.  Moreover,  in  most  instances,  these  and 
the  other  officers  of  the  Church  are  apt  to  interpret  their 
offices  as  tasks  laid  upon  them  to  perform  rather  than  as 
opportunities  for  leadership  through  which  they  shall  train 
the  membership  of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  Only  in  com¬ 
paratively  rare  cases  does  the  Church  as  a  whole  conceive 
of  itself  as  an  agency  for  mobilizing  and  utilizing  the 


170  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

entire  membership  in  helpful  community  and  world  serv¬ 
ice.  Even  in  such  a  matter  as  the  leadership  of  the 
singing  in  the  services  of  worship,  many  Churches  still 
spend  extravagant  sums  to  hire  professional  quartets  to 
sing  to  them  instead  of  appropriating  a  much  more  mod¬ 
erate  amount  for  developing  the  musical  abilities  of  their 
own  young  people  for  a  service  which  might  be  far  more 
varied  and  inspiring  than  any  quartet  can  render. 

II.  Agencies  Related  to  the  Church 

In  addition  to  the  teaching  agencies  over  which  the  local 
Church  itself  has  direct  control  there  are  other  important 
and  far-reaching  agencies  in  the  community  engaged  in 
work  which  is  educational  and  fundamentally,  even  when 
not  avowedly,  religious.  Of  these  the  Church  which  is 
thinking  of  its  teaching  work  in  terms  of  the  whole  com¬ 
munity  and  of  the  whole  life  of  the  individual  must  take 
careful  account. 

I.  The  Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association. — Of  these  agencies  those  most  closely 
affiliated  with  the  Churches  are  the  Young  Men’s  and 
Young  Women’s  Christian  Associations.  Through  their 
boys’  and  girls’  departments  these  organizations  seek  to 
provide  special  opportunities  for  young  people  from 
twelve  years  of  age  and  upward.  While  much  of  their 
work  is  social  in  nature,  it  is  all  pervaded  by  a  strong 
religious  purpose  and  includes  both  instructional  and  ex- 
pressional  aspects  of  the  teaching  process. 

The  Y.M.C.A.  Program  of  Training  for  Christian 
Citizenship  consists  of  two  sections,  one  for  boys  of  12  to 
14  years  of  age,  the  other  for  boys  15  to  17  years  old. 
Its  aim  is  four-fold,  to  develop  the  boy  physically,  intel¬ 
lectually,  religiously,  and  socially,  and  the  program  is 
closely  linked  up  with  all  the  normal  interests  of  a  boy’s 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  171 

life — such  as  nature,  home,  school,  Church.6  In  various 
ways  and  by  a  somewhat  elaborate  system  of  credits,  the 
program  is  intended  to  stimulate  and  motivate  worth¬ 
while  activities  and  preoccupy  the  boy’s  life  with  interests 
that  are  inspiring  and  absorbing.  By  methods  somewhat 
similar,  but  rather  less  elaborate,  the  Girl  Reserves  Pro¬ 
gram  of  the  Y.W.C.A.  seeks  to  develop  an  appreciation 
of  all  that  goes  into  the  making  of  wholesome  woman¬ 
hood.  Here  also  the  program  provides  for  two  distinct 
age-groups :  the  girls  who  are  still  in  the  school  grades, 
1 2  to  15  years  of  age,  and  those  of  high-school  age, 
whether  attending  school  or  engaged  as  working  girls. 

Both  these  agencies  may  be  regarded  as  somewhat 
highly  specialized  educational  instrumentalities,  exercising 
an  important  and,  in  the  aggregate,  extensive  influence 
upon  the  life  of  youth.  They  regard  themselves  as  func¬ 
tioning  in  a  special  field  for  all  the  churches.  Their 
policies  and  programs  are  not  under  the  control  of  the 
Churches  and  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  just  to  what 
extent  their  work  duplicates,  competes  with,  or  supple¬ 
ments  that  of  the  churches.  Undoubtedly,  by  reason  of 
an  equipment  and  leadership  which  are  often  superior  to 
those  which  the  average  Church  is  able  to  supply,  they 
succeed  in  attracting  a  considerable  number  of  those 
whom  the  Churches  have  failed  to  reach.  In  some  cases, 
no  doubt,  and  for  a  similar  reason,  boys  and  girls  are 
drawn  to  the  Christian  Associations  whom  the  Churches 
might  have  continued  to  serve.  And  it  is  confessedly 
not  easy  for  the  Associations  to  lead  their  young  people 
into  active  membership  and  service  in  the  regular  activities 
of  the  Church. 

The  most  serious  obstacle  to  effective  cooperation  be¬ 
tween  the  local  Churches  and  the  Christian  Association 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  programs  of  the  Associations, 
like  those  of  other  agencies,  prepared  outside  of  the  com- 


®  In  Canada  the  Christian  Citizenship  Training  Program  has 
been  made  a  joint  program  of  the  Churches  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 


172  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

munity,  at  the  state  or  national  offices,  are  too  rigidly 
standardized  to  be  easily  adapted  to  local  conditions  or 
the  teaching  programs  of  the  local  Churches.  If  some 
way  could  be  devised  whereby  the  teaching  work  and 
activities  of  the  Associations  could  be  in  charge  of  a 
local  board  made  up  of  representatives  of  the  local 
Churches,  who  are  in  close  touch  with  the  teaching  work 
of  the  Churches  for  these  ages  and  for  both  sexes,  such 
a  board,  studying  the  community  problem  as  a  whole, 
ought  to  be  able  to  work  out  a  joint  cooperative  program 
in  which  Churches  and  Associations  working  intelligently 
together  would  be  able  to  accomplish  the  utmost  for  the 
boys  and  girls. 

2.  Scout  and  Camp  Fire  Organizations. — Another 
group  of  agencies,  somewhat  less  closely  affiliated  with 
the  Churches  and  less  distinctly  religious,  are  the  Boy 
Scouts,  Girl  Scouts,  and  Campfire  Girls.  Perhaps  it  is 
more  accurate  to  speak  of  these  as  movements  rather  than 
as  organizations,  since  they  have  no  local  habitat,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  Christian  Associations,  but  make  use  of 
the  facilities  of  the  local  church  or  other  organization. 
In  this  respect  they  lend  themselves  more  readily  to  in¬ 
corporation  as  a  part  of  the  teaching  equipment  of  the 
local  Church.  At  the  same  time  they  are  also  often 
utilized  as  a  feature  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the 
Jewish  Synagogue,  a  public  school,  or  a  playground  as¬ 
sociation. 

The  Boy  Scouts  aim  to  develop  character  and  train 
for  citizenship  and  service.  The  girls’  activities  center 
about  three  main  interests — home,  health,  and  citizenship. 
None  of  these  three  organizations  thinks  of  its  program 
as  a  substitute  for  the  Church’s  program  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation,  but  believes  that  it  is  a  valuable  supplement  by 
providing  recreational,  expressional,  and  social  activities. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  any  local  Church 
which  can  provide  the  requisite  leadership  may  not  have 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  173 

these  organizations  as  a  part  of  its  teaching  machinery. 
The  chief  difficulty  here,  as  in  the  other  instances,  lies  in 
the  present  lack  of  correlation  between  the  Scout  and 
Campfire  programs  and  the  curriculum  of  instruction 
in  the  Church  itself. 

III.  Other  Community  Agencies 

1.  The  Public  Library. — Much  further  removed  from 
present  contacts  with  the  Churches,  but  needing  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  forming  the  whole  program  of  reli¬ 
gious  education,  are  various  community  agencies,  such  as 
the  library  and  the  recreational  facilities.  In  the  library 
we  have  an  institution  which,  while  avowedly  public  and 
secular,  is  potentially  of  great  value  as  an  adjunct  of  the 
Church  school.  Library  boards  are  generally  willing  to 
supply  good  books  for  which  there  is  any  considerable 
demand.  And  young  folks  between  the  ages  of  9  or  10 
and  14  or  15  spend,  in  many  instances,  nearly  one-fourth 
of  their  spare  time  reading.  Why  should  not  the  Churches 
unitedly  take  advantage  of  this  opportunity  and  either 
adopt  available  lists  or  work  out  for  themselves  graded 
lists  of  books,  classified  according  to  age  and  subject, 
which  would  parallel  the  curriculum  of  religious  instruc¬ 
tion  and  furnish  experience  of  moral  adventure,  heroism, 
biography,  travel,  devotion,  and  self-sacrifice?  By  stimu¬ 
lating  young  people  to  make  use  of  this  literature,  the 
teaching  of  the  Sunday  School  and  other  agencies  could 
be  strongly  reenforced. 

2.  The  Playground. — On  the  side  of  activity  and  ex¬ 
pression,  a  similar  correlation  may  be  made  with  the 
playground  authorities.  If  the  teacher  in  the  Church 
school  knows  what  plays  and  games  occupy  the  leisure  of 
the  pupils,  and  knows  also  the  character-making  values  of 
these  plays,  here  will  be  a  bond  of  connection  between 
lessons  and  life  that  is  most  valuable.  Clean  sport,  fair 
play,  self-sacrifice,  obedience  to  rules,  team-cooperation, 


174  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

skill,  initiative,  a  sense  of  honor,  chivalry,  generous  ap¬ 
preciation  of  an  opponent — these  and  many  other  qualities 
— find  expression  and  development  in  the  spontaneous  life 
of  the  playground.  The  problems  of  the  playground  may 
well  form  a  basis  of  class  discussions.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  lessons  taught  in  the  Church  school  find  ready  illus¬ 
tration  in  the  play-life  of  the  pupil.  Every  teacher  should 
have  a  classified  list  of  plays  and  games,  adapted  to  the 
different  age-periods,  and  whenever  possible  teachers 
should  also  participate  with  their  pupils  in  their  play. 

3.  Moving  Pictures. — While  educators  are  not  in 
entire  agreement  as  to  the  educational  value  of  the  motion 
picture,  the  general  impression  is  that  it  is  an  agency  of 
potentially  great  importance.  Two  questions  affecting  the 
Church’s  teaching  confront  us — the  undesirable  character 
of  many  films  shown  in  the  theaters,  and  the  educa¬ 
tional  possibility  of  using  films  in  the  Church’s  own  pro¬ 
gram.  Into  the  first  perplexing  problem  we  cannot  enter 
here.  As  to  the  second,  experience  has  shown  that  it  is 
possible  for  the  Churches  to  make  good  use  of  carefully 
chosen  films,  but  the  available  films  for  this  purpose,  it 
must  be  confessed,  are  still  few.  As  particularly  suited 
to  Church  use  may  be  mentioned,  in  addition  to  subjects 
from  the  Bible,  films  which  illustrate  the  processes  of 
nature,  personal  and  public  hygiene,  common  industries 
and  vocations,  travel,  historical  and  biographical  episodes. 
In  any  such  program,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  the  aim  is  not 
to  furnish  “bait”  for  the  Churches  but  to  use  the  appeal 
to  the  eye  as  a  part  of  an  educational  enterprise. 

4.  The  Public  School  System. — That  the  American 
people  intend  to  keep  distinct  and  separate  the  State  and 
the  Church,  and  consequently  the  public  school  and  the 
Church  school,  may  be  accepted  as  settled.  It  is  the  fixed 
policy  of  the  State  to  send  all  the  children  to  school.  It 
should  be  equally  the  policy  of  the  Churches  to  see  that 
all  children,  except  of  those  parents  who  positively  forbid 


TEACHING  AGENCIES  OF  LOCAL  CHURCH  175 

it,  receive  education  in  religion.  This  is  being  more  and 
more  strongly  urged  upon  the  Churches  by  educators  in 
the  public  schools  themselves.  In  a  growing  number  of 
communities  helpful  adjustments  have  been  made  to 
facilitate  the  formation  of  week-day  classes  in  religion. 
Again,  in  states  like  North  Dakota  and  Colorado,  the 
public  schools  have  arranged  to  give  credit  for  the 
teaching  of  high  school  pupils  by  the  Churches  whenever 
that  teaching  shall  attain  a  specified  standard. 

But  there  is  need  for  much  closer  contact  than  that 
which  exists  in  these  exceptional  communities.  Sunday- 
School  teachers  need  to  know  more  intimately  the  moral 
and  intellectual  problems  of  boys  and  girls  at  school.  They 
need  to  follow  more  closely  the  trend  of  the  curriculum 
and  the  current  methods  of  instruction.  The  teaching  of 
Biblical  geography,  for  example,  should  come  at  about  the 
same  time  in  Sunday  Schools  as  similar  teaching  in  the 
day  school.  Not  a  little  historical  and  biographical  and 
scientific  material  which  has  grown  familiar  through  the 
day-school  studies  may  well  be  utilized  again  in  the 
Church  school,  from  a  somewhat  different  angle,  as  ma¬ 
terial  for  religious  teaching.  Problems  of  conduct  which 
arise  on  the  play-ground  and  in  the  school-room  may  be 
formulated  and  discussed  in  the  session  of  the  Sunday 
School.  Bonds  of  association  could  thus  be  interwoven 
between  the  experiences  of  the  Church  school  and  those  of 
the  day  school,  interpreting  the  life  of  the  day  school  in 
the  light  of  the  Christian  religion  and  vitalizing  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  school. 

The  reference  to  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  public 
school  system  introduces  us  to  the  rising  movement  for 
week-day  religious  education.  This  movement  is  still 
so  much  in  the  experimental  stage,  and  is  of  such  vital 
importance,  that  we  shall  consider  it  more  fully  in  the 
following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  FOR  WEEK-DAY 
RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

If  one  were  to  make  the  statement  that  it  is  only  re¬ 
cently  that  religious  education  has  been  thought  of  as  an 
activity  of  the  week-day,  he  would  no  doubt  be  challenged 
immediately  by  a  number  of  organizations.  For  there 
have  been,  from  the  first  years  of  the  Christian  era,  classes 
and  schools  for  religious  instruction  which  met  at  other 
times  than  on  Sunday.  Even  if  one  were  to  say  that  the 
movement  for  week-day  religious  education  is  new  to 
modern  times,  the  statement  would  be  disputed.  The 
advocates  of  parochial  schools,  pastors  in  charge  of  cate¬ 
chetical  classes,  leaders  of  various  organizations  such  as 
the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Scouts,  and  many  others  would 
answer  rightly  that  the  idea  is  by  no  means  a  new 
discovery. 

But  from  another  angle  we  may  say  that  the  movement 
which  we  have  in  mind  is  a  new  one.  The  impetus  given 
to  religious  education  during  the  week  has  come  from 
none  of  these  sources  to  any  large  extent.  By  week-day 
schools  of  religion  we  now  mean  the  recent  type  of  school 
which  definitely  seeks  to  set  up  a  program  of  religious 
education  as  a  part  of  the  child's  week-day  school  life. 
There  is,  in  the  minds  of  those  responsible  for  this  new 
agency,  the  aim  of  completing  the  training  of  every  child 
by  giving  him,  in  a  truly  educational  way,  his  religious 
heritage.  Thus  we  find  a  type  of  school  which  is  of  com¬ 
paratively  recent  growth  and  quite  different  from  any 
that  have  hitherto  been  established. 

The  date  of  the  beginnings  of  this  movement  is  some¬ 
what  difficult  to  determine.  The  Jewish  and  Lutheran 

176 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


177 

schools,  as  well  as  the  Roman  Catholic,  go  back  some  time. 
Among  the  Protestant  schools  those  founded  in  Gary, 
Indiana,  in  the  spring  of  1914,  represent  the  first  definite 
attempt  to  think  of  week-day  religious  education  as  an 
integral  part  of  the  child’s  school  program.  At  first  the 
movement  grew  slowly.  In  1920  there  began  a  very  rapid 
extension  of  the  idea,  reports  in  a  recent  Survey 1  indicat¬ 
ing  that  in  that  year  77  schools  were  established.  In  the 
following  year  13 1  others  followed,  and  during  the  first 
two  months  of  1922,  25  more  were  reported.  Precise 
figures  for  today  are  not  available,  but  it  is  conservatively 
estimated  that  by  this  time  there  are  probably  1,000  week¬ 
day  schools  of  religion  in  existence  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  thus  evident  that  the  recent  growth  of  the  movement 
has  been  vigorous.  This  growth  further  distinguishes  the 
type  of  religious  education  above  defined  from  other 
efforts  at  religious  development  outside  of  Sunday.  It 
also  makes  it  imperative  that  we  consider  seriously  the 
causes  of  the  movement  and  its  meaning  with  reference 
to  the  future  of  the  educational  work  of  the  Church. 

1.  Causes  of  the  Week-Day  Movement 

While  a  number  of  specific  reasons  might  be  given  for 
the  development  of  the  movement  for  week-day  religious 
education,  all  of  them  may  be  comprehended  in  two  gen¬ 
eral  statements. 

First,  there  has  been  deep  concern  because  of  the 
fruit,  or  lack  of  fruit,  of  recent  religious  effort  and  a  con¬ 
viction  that  we  must  have  more  religious  education.  We 
seem  to  be  facing  a  more  difficult  situation  in  moral  and 

1  Made  early  in  1922,  by  Erwin  L.  Shaver,  for  the  Religious 
Education  Association  and  the  Committee  on  Social  and  Re¬ 
ligious  Surveys.  The  Report  is  published  in  Religious  Educa¬ 
tion  for  April,  1922.  The  full  report  of  the  Conference  of  the 
Religious  Education  Association  at  which  the  subject  was  dis¬ 
cussed  is  presented  in  “Week-Day  Religious  Education,”  edited 
by  H.  F.  Cope  (Doran,  1922). 


i;8  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

religious  teaching  than  any  which  has  presented  itself  for 
some  years.  The  present  wave  of  immorality,  if  such  we 
may  call  it;  social  ills,  such  as  race  prejudice  and  war, 
crying  aloud  for  some  real  cure;  the  condition  of  spiritual 
illiteracy  of  a  people  who  know  not  their  own  beliefs  or 
ethical  standards;  the  increasingly  difficult  position  of  the 
Church  with  reference  to  society  at  large — all  these  are 
impelling  reasons  why  more  strenuous  efforts  to  teach 
morality  and  religion  are  called  for.  Should  we  doubt 
this  condition  we  have  but  to  note  the  multiplicity  of 
agencies  aiming  to  do  this  very  thing.  Within  the  Church 
we  have  had  a  gradual  accumulation  of  educational  organ¬ 
izations,  such  as  we  have  considered  in  the  previous  chap¬ 
ter.  The  foreign  missionary  enterprise  and  the  home 
missionary  program  also  are  demanding  more  work  along 
educational  lines.  Even  outside  the  Church  there  are 
many  agencies  being  established  to  develop  the  religious 
and  moral  life  of  the  child.  The  child ,  as  a  result,  is  being 
pulled  and  hauled  this  way  and  that  so  strenuously  that 
one  wonders  that  he  knows  which  way  to  turn.  And  now 
another  bidder  for  his  attention  has  come  upon  the  scene. 
This  movement  for  week-day  religious  instruction  is 
additional  evidence  of  the  feeling  that  we  must  have  more 
religious  education . 

A  second  reason  which  lies  back  of  the  week-day  move¬ 
ment,  and  one  which  is  perhaps  more  peculiar  to  it  than  to 
any  other  phase  of  the  demand  for  religious  education,  is 
the  new  tendency  to  apply  educational  principles  more 
thoroughly  and  strictly  to  religious  development.  While 
the  application  of  this  new  point  of  view  has  been  slowly 
creeping  into  the  Sunday  School,  and  is  the  compelling 
force  behind  a  number  of  other  religious-educational  insti¬ 
tutions,  it  has  not  yet  come  into  its  own.  There  has  been 
a  demand  for  a  real  school  with  religious  ideals.  Ever 
since  Church  and  State  have  been  wisely  separated,  some 
efforts  have  been  put  forth  to  teach  religion  in  the  schools. 
But  we  have  already  seen  that  these  efforts  have  proved 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  179 

wholly  inadequate.  The  movement  which  we  are  consid¬ 
ering  is  the  latest  answer  to  the  call  for  a  truly  educa¬ 
tional  program  applied  to  religious  growth.  The  week¬ 
day  school  of  religion  is  avowedly  educational  in  method. 
Its  aims,  its  methods  of  organization,  and  its  methods  of 
teaching  are  all  based  upon  the  claim  that  it  is  a  school 
and  seeks  to  be  classed  as  such. 

The  relationship  which  this  newcomer  bears  to  the 
Sunday  School  on  the  one  hand  and  to  the  public  school 
on  the  other  is  of  especial  significance.  Some  of  these 
new  schools  are  viewed  by  their  promoters  as  extensions 
of  the  Church’s  educational  work  into  the  week,  reaching 
out  for  and  cooperating  with  the  public  school.  Others 
think  of  their  week-day  school  of  religion  as  rather  the 
reaching  out  of  the  public  school  toward  the  Church;  that 
is,  the  classes  in  religion  are  regarded  as  supplementary 
to  the  public-school  course  of  study  and  are  expressions 
of  the  friendship  which  the  public  school  bears  to  the 
Church.  Since  religion  cannot  be  taught  in  the  public 
school,  the  week-day  schools  thus  partake  of  the  nature 
of  parallel  training  schools  of  Christian  citizenship.  In 
a  few  cases  the  religious  training  during  the  week  is  a 
sort  of  independent  piece  of  work  linking  the  two  educa¬ 
tional  institutions,  Church  and  State,  but  free  from  the 
restrictions  incident  to  both.  But  in  and  through  all  the 
purposes  back  of  the  venture  is  the  deep-seated  conviction 
that  religious  development  must  come  through  a  thorough 
application  of  educational  methods  to  the  field  of  religion. 

2.  Present  Status  of  Week-Day  Schools 

We  cannot  here  go  extensively  into  the  details  of  the 
work  of  the  week-day  schools,  but  we  may  hope  to  present 
sufficient  facts  to  be  able  to  understand  their  place  in  the 

4 

modern  program  of  religious  education,  to  judge  their 
value  and  to  offer  suggestions  for  future  guidance. 


i8o  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


(a)  The  Aims  of  Week-day  Schools. — One  cannot 
estimate  fairly  the  work  of  such  schools  unless  he  goes 
into  the  motives  which  prompt  their  establishment.  These 
motives  differ.  The  most  prominent  aim  in  the  minds  of 
those  responsible  has  been  suggested  above,  the  desire 
to  meet  a  condition  of  great  spiritual  illiteracy.  In  a  few 
cases  Churches  seem  to  conceive  of  the  founding  of  a 
week-day  school  chiefly  as  a  further  buttressing  of  their 
ecclesiastical  stronghold ;  lest  their  Church  be  lost  in  the 
social  changes  taking  place,  a  week-day  school  is  added  ta 
the  teaching  agencies  of  the  Church  already  existing. 
With  many  leaders  there  is  a  feeling  that  the  Sunday 
School,  as  an  educational  institution,  is  inadequate  or 
has  largely  failed.  The  aim,  in  their  case,  is  the  creation 
of  a  real  teaching  institution.  Some  of  the  Churches 
hope  thereby  to  educate  their  own  children  religiously; 
others  conceive  the  mission  of  the  week-day  school  to 
be  the  reaching  of  those  who  are  not  touched  by  religious 
influences.  This  difference  in  aim,  as  well  as  the  differences 
noted  above,  makes  it  evident  that  there  is  by  no  means 
a  clear  conception  of  precisely  what  the  week-day  schools 
are  to  do,  other  than,  in  general,  to  extend  religious* 
education.  While  some  may  be  clear  as  to  the  aim  of 
their  particular  school,  the  range  of  aims  is  so  wide  and 
so  often  contradictory  as  to  render  any  one  inclusive  state¬ 
ment  of  aims  impossible. 

As  to  what  these  schools  are  to  aim  to  teach,  there  is 
considerable  diversity  of  opinion.  Some  limit  their  work 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Bible;  others  include  courses  in 
social  service  and  missions ;  some  provide  for  a  period  o£ 
worship;  a  considerable  number  arrange  for  some  kind 
of  expressional  work.  These  aims  are,  of  course,  all  re¬ 
garded  as  but  proximate  and  means  to  the  ultimate  goal  of 
a  fuller  development  of  the  religious  life. 

(b)  Types  of  Schools. — In  the  main,  most  of  the  exist¬ 
ing  schools  belong  to  one  of  three  types,  classified  on  the 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  181 

basis  of  the  management  of  the  school.  The  first  type, 
known  as  the  denominational ,  or  individual  Church, 
school,  includes  those  which  are  governed  by  the  local 
Church  and  have  no  connection  with  any  other  school  in 
the  community.  Such  schools  maintain  this  independent 
position  in  some  cases  because  of  denominational 
loyalty;  in  others,  because  no  other  school  exists  with 
which  to  cooperate.  Some  such  schools  are  forward- 
looking  as  to  aims  and  methods;  others  are  exceedingly 
conservative.  A  school  of  this  type  works  at  a  disadvan¬ 
tage  as  to  cost  of  operation  and  the  employment  of  skilled 
supervisors,  but  being  more  easily  able  to  coordinate  the 
week-day  with  the  Sunday  School  it  can  offer  a  more 
unified  program  of  religious  education  for  the  children 
whom  it  reaches. 

A  second  type  of  school,  the  denominational-cooper - 
ating  type ,  differs  from  the  first  largely  in  the  fact  that  it 
cooperates  with  other  schools  to  promote  the  general  in¬ 
terests  of  all.  Each  school  is  independent  in  matters  per¬ 
taining  to  its  own  government  and  teaching,  but  such 
questions  as  the  securing  of  public-school  time  or  granting 
of  credits,  advertising  the  movement,  and  the  like,  are 
given  into  the  hands  of  a  committee  representing  the 
different  interests  involved.  In  this  respect  this  type  of 
school  has  advantages  over  the  first  type ;  otherwise  there 
is  little  difference. 

A  third  type,  distinct  from  those  described  above,  is 
commonly  known  as  the  community  school.  A  more 
accurate  name  is  the  neighborhood  ( or  city )  system  of 
schools,  for  these  schools,  though  less  sectarian  and  more 
widely  democratic  than  the  others,  are  not  representative 
of  the  entire  community,  which  includes  Roman  Catholics 
and  Jews.  The  governing  board  is  made  up  of  repre¬ 
sentatives  from  the  several  Churches.  The  course  of 
study  is  uniform  for  all  the  denominations  joining  in  the 
system;  other  matters  also  are  handled  without  regard 
to  denominational  lines.  This  type  of  school  quite  fre- 


1 82  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

quently  thinks  of  its  task  as  training  for  Christian  citi¬ 
zenship.  It  is  usually  in  a  position  to  make  a  strong 
impression  upon  the  public.  The  Survey  reported  44  of 
these  systems  existing  early  in  1922,  maintaining  169  sepa¬ 
rate  schools. 

In  the  matter  of  government  the  school  at  Malden, 
Massachusetts,  is  quite  different  from  any  of  those  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  above  type-classifications.  It  is  supported 
and  maintained  by  the  interested  Protestant  community 
but  apart  from  any  Church  control.  The  schools  at 
Evanston,  Illinois,  began  in  a  similar  way  but  the  trial 
ended  by  providing  a  closer  relationship  to  the  Churches. 

In  general,  one  may  say  that  there  is  no  one  type  of 
week-day  school  as  yet  which  seems  suited  to  all  situations 
and  that  further  experimentation  needs  to  be  carried  on 
before  final  judgment  can  be  passed. 

(c)  The  Organization  and  Administration  of  Schools. 
— Most  of  the  existing  schools  are  supported  by  the 
local  Church  budgets,  a  considerable  number  by  sub¬ 
scriptions  taken  in  the  community.  In  some  cases  a 
school  or  system  of  schools  is  maintained  by  pro-rata 
assessment  of  expenses  among  the  several  Churches  co¬ 
operating.  Occasionally  more  than  one  means  of  de¬ 
fraying  the  cost  of  the  school  is  used.  While  there  are 
a  number  of  schools  which  are  maintained  with  prac¬ 
tically  no  expense,  the  larger  number  need  money  to  do 
the  work  they  have  undertaken.  On  the  average  the 
existing  schools  are  run  for  about  $200  a  year.  The  Sur¬ 
vey  reports  89  schools  costing  over  this  amount,  one 
school  expending  $2,500  a  year.  On  a  basis  of  cost  per 
pupil  the  amount  ranges  from  nothing  in  many  schools 
to  amounts  as  high  as  $17  a  year.  The  median  cost  is 
about  $1  annually  for  each  pupil. 

Most  of  this  money  is  expended  for  workers’  salaries, 
some  for  office  expense,  and  some  for  text-books  and 
materials.  Supervisors’  salaries,  on  a  yearly  basis,  range 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  183 

from  $36  to  $3,600,  the  median  being  $222.  It  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  however,  that  in  many  cases  this  amount 
includes  payment  for  other  services  within  the  church. 
Where  teachers  are  paid,  we  have  a  range  of  salaries  from 
$68  to  $2,500  a  year,  with  a  median  salary  of  $600. 
Most  frequently  teachers  are  paid  for  part  time  at  an 
hourly  rate  of  $1.25  (median).  From  these  figures  one 
gets  some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  churches  recog¬ 
nize  professional  service  in  religious  education. 

The  buildings  used  for  week-day  instruction  in  most 
cases  are  Churches.  Some  schools  utilize  the  parish  house 
of  the  Church;  some  have  their  classes  meet  in  rooms  of 
the  public  school.  In  a  small  proportion  of  cases  such 
buildings  as  the  Y.M.C.A.  or  a  settlement  house  are 
used.  The  Latter  Day  Saints  provide  special  buildings 
for  their  schools,  as  is  the  case  in  one  of  the  schools  of 
the  Gary  system.  The  rooms  as  a  whole  are  lacking  either 
in  the  school-room  atmosphere,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the 
environment  conducive  to  worship  on  the  other,  for  where 
one  of  these  features  is  good,  the  other  is  almost  always 
lacking.  Most  of  the  schools  for  week-day  instruction 
in  religion  have  wisely  avoided  the  use  of  public-school 
buildings,  lest  such  a  practise  be  misunderstood  and  open 
the  way  for  opposition. 

The  equipment  of  these  buildings  and  class-rooms  varies 
considerably.  A  few  schools  use  pews  or  benches  and 
find  artificial  light  a  necessity.  Most  of  them  provide 
better  seating  facilities,  more  like  the  public  school,  by 
using  chairs  or  school  seats.  Work  tables  or  school 
desks  are  also  provided  in  most  class-rooms.  Maps  and 
blackboards  are  supplied  to  a  reasonable  extent.  When 
it  comes  to  library  equipment  the  reports  indicate  less 
generous  provision.  Only  a  few  schools  furnish  the 
pupils  with  a  reference  library;  more  have  a  teachers? 
library.  Pianos  are  quite  frequently  found  and  occa¬ 
sionally  equipment  for  handwork.  As  compared  with 
the  public  school  equipment,  that  which  is  used  in  the 


1 84  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

week-day  schools  of  religion  is  rather  meager  and  poor, 
but  as  compared  with  that  of  the  Sunday  School  some 
advance  has  been  made. 

Facts  as  to  the  organization  for  instruction  are  indica¬ 
tive  of  the  present  status  of  the  movement.  A  few 
schools  are  organized  for  carrying  on  two  grades  (years) 
of  work  only;  about  as  many  provide  for  a  full  thirteen 
grades,  including  a  kindergarten  and  four  years  of  high 
school.  Between  these  two  extremes  the  remaining  schools 
are  grouped,  the  median  number  of  grades  or  years  of 
work  offered  being  seven.  This  does  not  mean,  however, 
that  these  grades  always  meet  as  separate  classes.  Fre¬ 
quently  several  meet  as  one  class,  the  most  usual  arrange¬ 
ment  being  two  grades  to  each  class.  Perhaps  two-thirds 
of  the  schools  hold  their  classes  during  public  school 
hours.  The  pupils  in  that  case  are  excused  from  a  study 
period,  a  play  period,  an  auditorium  period,  or  from 
recitation  in  some  elective  subject.  Where  this  is  not 
done  the  religious  instruction  is  given  after  school  or  at 
some  other  convenient  time  outside  school  hours.  Most 
of  the  classes  vary  in  length  from  a  half  hour  to  an  hour, 
although  a  few  schools  hold  sessions  of  an  hour  and  a 
half.  In  most  of  the  schools  one  recitation  a  week  is  the 
rule ;  a  number  have  their  pupils  meet  twice  a  week. 
On  the  average  the  pupils  receive  about  one  hour  a  week 
of  religious  training. 

The  number  of  pupils  receiving  week-day  instruction 
last  year  was  approximately  50,000,  with  the  enrolment 
of  girls  slightly  higher  than  that  of  boys.  The  smallest 
school  reported  has  4  scholars;  the  largest  519.  The 
median  number  of  pupils  in  a  single  school  is  106.  The 
heaviest  enrolment  is  found  in  grades  four  to  six.  When 
but  a  few  grades  are  provided,  it  is  generally  these  that 
compose  the  school.  The  percentage  of  attendance  centers 
about  91.  Various  reasons  seem  to  account  for  the 
attendance  of  scholars  upon  this  new  type  of  school.  In 
some  cases  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a  new  thing ; 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  185 

in  others  a  craving  for  something  to  do  is  the  power 
of  attraction.  The  school  by  its  very  nature  is  selective, 
only  the  more  serious-minded  coming  to  week-day  classes. 

The  week-day  classes  reporting  in  the  Survey  were  em¬ 
ploying  888  teachers,  all  but  30  of  them  being  part-time 
workers.  Over  60  per  cent,  of  the  total  give  their  serv¬ 
ices  without  pay.  In  some  schools  pastors  and  educa¬ 
tional  directors  are  doing  all  or  part  of  the  teaching. 
About  half  of  the  number  have  had  a  college  or  normal 
school  training.  The  remainder  have  had  training  of  a 
high-school  grade  or  less.  When  it  comes  to  educational 
experience,  about  the  same  proportion  exists.  One-half 
have  taught  in  some  kind  of  a  public  school.  The  other 
half  are  limited  in  teaching  experience  to  Sunday  School 
or  special  work. 

Practically  all  the  week-day  schools  have  someone  act¬ 
ing  as  a  supervisor  of  the  work  being  done.  Often  the 
teacher  acts  as  supervisor  also ;  sometimes  the  pastor  or 
educational  director  supervises.  Over  20  per  cent,  of 
these  supervisors  are  full-time  workers,  indicating  a 
growing  tendency  toward  a  professionalizing  of  the  week¬ 
day  work.  Almost  all  of  these  supervisors  have  had 
either  a  college  or  normal-school  education.  Slightly  less 
than  half  have  studied  in  a  theological  seminary.  Only 
a  little  over  a  third,  however,  have  studied  in  the  field 
of  religious  education,  to  say  nothing  of  taking  an  ade¬ 
quate  professional  course  in  that  subject.  Two-thirds  of 
the  supervisors  have  had  experience  in  public  education. 

(d)  The  Course  of  Study. — In  the  courses  of  study 
used  in  the  week-day  schools  there  is  also  considerable 
variety.  In  a  number  the  Bible  is  the  only  text  used.  In 
some  schools,  particularly  in  those  emphasizing  denomi¬ 
national  loyalty,  courses  prepared  with  their  own  needs 
in  mind  are  offered.  Several  denominations  are  using 
courses  which  seek  to  unify  the  work  of  Sunday  and 
week  day.  The  majority  of  schools,  however,  are  using 


1 86  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

non-denominational  courses,  such  as  the  University  of 
Chicago,  Scribner’s  or  the  Abingdon  series.  Generally 
speaking,  the  course  material  is  less  distinctly  denomina¬ 
tional  than  that  taught  in  the  Sunday  School.  In  a  few 
places  special  courses  of  an  eclectic  nature  have  been 
prepared  as  most  suitable  for  local  conditions. 

In  the  week-day  school,  as  in  the  Sunday  School,  the 
“knowledge”  view  of  the  curriculum  still  seems  to  be 
predominant.  A  course  of  study  is  looked  upon  as  so 
many  ideas  and  facts  which  are  to  be  made  the  possession 
of  the  pupil.  It  is  apparently  assumed  that  the  goal  of 
religious  training  will  be  attained  if  only  the  child  mas¬ 
ters  the  facts.  The  texts  are  studied  and  recited  upon; 
the  truths,  often  in  catechetical  or  Biblical  verse  form,  are 
memorized.  The  courses  for  the  most  part  differ  little 
from  each  other  except  as  to  externals.  Some  are  more 
attractively  bound ;  others  are  more  interestingly  arranged 
or  written ;  a  few  contain  extra- Biblical  stories  as  well  as 
Biblical.  The  aim  seems  to  be  to  make  the  truth  more 
attractive.  While  much  of  the  material  is  a  vast  improve¬ 
ment  over  the  older  Sunday-School  lessons,  in  most  cases 
the  viewpoint  of  the  curriculum  is  essentially  the  same. 
There  is  not  very  much  attention  paid  to  worship  as  a 
part  of  the  religious  experience.  Some  leaders  feel  that 
this  should  be  left  for  the  Sunday  session.  Many  con¬ 
ceive  of  intellectual  instruction  as  the  main  task.  There  is 
a  tendency  to  include  some  kinds  of  activity,  such  as  hand¬ 
work,  dramatization,  or  Christian  service  activities,  as  a 
means  of  “expressing  the  idea”  which  has  been  learned. 

In  general,  there  is  considerable  diversity  of  opinion 
as  to  what  ought  to  be  taught.  The  fact  that  many  schools 
are  not  satisfied  with  any  available  course  of  study,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  use  of  eclectic  courses,  gives  evidence  of 
an  increasing  feeling  that  a  course  of  religious  training 
is  something  more  than  a  set  of  texts  to  be  learned. 
Many  leaders  are  asking  for  something  different,  but  their 
wants  are  not  yet  satisfied. 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  187 

(e)  The  Method  of  Teaching. — Probably  most  of  the 
teachers  are  hardly  conscious  of  using  any  specific 
method  of  teaching.  Nevertheless,  in  mode  of  approach 
and  types  of  procedure,  a  number  of  ways  of  seeking  to 
develop  the  religious  life  of  children  are  found.  In  a 
considerable  number  of  schools  the  methods  used  are  still 
centered  about  the  drill  process.  The  aim  is  to  get  the 
pupils  to  repeat  certain  truths  which  they  have  memo¬ 
rized.  In  some  schools  the  Church  catechism  is  used, 
with  interpretation  added.  In  others  the  memory  work 
takes  the  form  of  Bible  verses  and  the  teaching  consists 
in  hearing  the  verses  repeated.  In  addition  pupils  are 
drilled  on  the  books  of  the  Bible,  the  location  of  places, 
or  stories  of  Biblical  heroes. 

Another  general  type  is  that  in  which  the  teacher 
is  the  actor  and  the  pupils  are  passive  spectators.  The 
lecture  or  persuasive  sermon  is  used  as  the  means  of  in¬ 
fluencing  a  change  of  life  in  the  scholar.  This  method 
in  its  purity  is  not  common,  but  it  permeates  much  of 
the  other  kinds  of  teaching,  often  overshadowing  more 
educational  efforts  at  developing  religious  life.  The 
teacher  conceives  it  her  task  to  say  what  ought  to  be  said, 
and  as  long  as  the  pupils  are  passively  interested  and  do 
not  run  away,  she  is  hopeful  of  results. 

A  third  method  provides  for  more  participation  by 
the  scholars.  Sometimes  this  activity  takes  the  form 
of  a  live  discussion;  at  other  times  it  is  exceedingly 
difficult  to  get  the  pupils  to  say  anything.  Discussion 
of  intellectual  problems  of  various  kinds  and  from  vari¬ 
ous  sources  often  comprises  the  activity.  Some  teachers 
are  not  satisfied  with  a  method  which  limits  activity  to 
verbal  discussion.  They  consider  their  teaching  com¬ 
plete  only  when  the  class-room  work  includes  physical 
and  social  elements.  We  have  two  kinds  of  this  latter 
activity,  depending  upon  the  viewpoint  of  the  teacher. 
The  line  of  demarcation  is  quite  distinct.  In  the  large 
majority  of  cases  the  pupil’s  activity  is  planned  for  by 


1 88  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

the  teacher  in  order  to  make  the  lesson  more  vivid.  The 
scholars  make  models,  color  pictures,  play  the  story.  A 
few  teachers,  happily,  consider  that  all  activities  engaged 
in  by  their  pupils  may  be  religious  experiences  and  work 
for  intelligent  Christian  purposing  and  self-directed  execu¬ 
tion  of  Christian  projects.  They  conceive  their  task  as 
teachers  to  be  the  friendly  guidance  of  their  pupils  in 
the  selection,  planning,  and  carrying  out  of  those  enter¬ 
prises  which  mark  the  life  of  a  true  Christian. 

(f)  Relation  to  Other  Educational  Agencies. — A  dis¬ 
cussion  of  the  present  status  of  the  week-day  movement 
would  be  incomplete  without  some  mention  of  the  rela¬ 
tion  which  it  bears  to  other  agencies  working  with  child 
life.  While  we  might  desire  that  some  form  of  coopera¬ 
tion  be  had  with  the  home ,  it  must  be  said  that  thus  far 
very  little  has  been  done  in  this  direction.  There  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  express  a  hope  that  these  two 
agencies  may  be  able  to  get  together  in  the  formulation 
of  a  more  definite  policy  of  mutual  helpfulness.  As  to 
such  organizations  as  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  the  Scouts, 
the  same  must  also  be  said.  Each  is  working  along  its 
own  lines  and  the  week-day  school  does  not  relate  its 
work  to  their  activities. 

When  we  turn  to  the  public  school  a  different  situation 
is  presented.  The  week-day  school  of  religion  is  a  defi¬ 
nite  attempt  to  correlate  the  child’s  week-day  educational 
program,  fitting  religious  education  and  public  education 
together.  The  granting  of  time  by  the  public  school  is 
one  aspect  of  this  relationship.  Another  is  the  giving  of 
public-school  credit  by  some  of  the  school  boards  and 
principals.  In  the  high  school  this  credit  takes  the  form 
of  allowing  the  pupil  to  substitute  the  course  in  the  school 
of  religion  for  one  of  the  elective  subjects.  In  the  grades 
it  is  classed  as  a  supplementary  study,  but  one  which  is 
not  required  for  promotion  to  another  grade.  The  pupils 
are  excused  at  the  parents’  request  from  free  periods 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  189 

or  elective  subjects  to  attend  the  classes  in  religion.  Most 
of  the  public  schools  exercise  some  kind  of  supervision 
with  respect  to  the  work  of  the  week-day  classes  in  re¬ 
ligion.  The  most  usual  form  is  that  of  keeping  a  record 
of  attendance.  Although  many  principals  reserve  the 
right  to  check  up  upon  the  conduct  or  work  of  pupils, 
very  few  exercise  the  privilege.  They  would  like  to  keep 
the  work  of  the  two  schools  distinct  as  far  as  possible, 
without  being  unfair  to  the  school  of  religion.  While  the 
public-school  officials  expect  the  teachers  of  religion  to 
possess  high  qualifications,  little  is  done  to  enforce 
the  maintenance  of  such  a  standard.  The  unofficial  rela¬ 
tions  between  the  officers  and  teachers  of  the  public-school 
system  and  the  workers  in  the  week-day  schools  are  most 
kindly.  The  former  are  generally  glad  to  assist  in  the 
promotion  of  schools  of  religion.  In  a  few  instances 
the  public-school  teacher  uses  the  material  of  the  lesson 
in  religion  as  a  basis  of  theme  work,  which  suggests  an 
attempt  at  unifying  the  educational  experience  of  the 
child.  Further  than  these  external  relationships  the 
correlation  of  these  two  educational  agencies  has  not 
gone. 

Since  the  week-day  school  is  a  religious  institution,  we 
are  interested  also  in  the  relationship  which  exists  be¬ 
tween  it  and  the  Church.  Most  of  the  schools  are  closely 
connected  with  the  Church  in  government  and  aim.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  children  attending  them  belong  to  some 
Sunday  School.  In  spite  of  these  facts  there  is  very 
little  correlation.  Only  a  few  Churches  have  a  unified 
educational  program  with  the  week-day  school  as  an  in¬ 
tegral  part  of  it.  The  higher  educational  standard  aimed 
at,  the  separate  governing  body,  the  employment  of  the 
professional  teacher  of  religion,  and  other  factors,  make 
for  separation.  The  pupil  feels  this  and  it  causes  a  fur¬ 
ther  split  in  his  educational  consciousness.  Some  endeavors 
at  a  division  of  lesson  material  have  been  made,  for  the 
sake  of  unity,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  this  method  is  ade- 


190  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

quate.  There  is  need  for  serious  study  at  this  point. 
The  way  out  seems  to  be  along  the  line  of  closer  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  process  by  which  a  child  develops  religiously. 

3.  The  Week-Day  School  Evaluated 

On  the  three  most  important  aspects  of  the  week-day 
movement — the  aims,  the  curriculum,  and  the  teaching 
process — we  need  to  evaluate,  so  far  as  possible,  the 
present  development. 

(a)  Aims  of  the  Week-Day  School. — The  existing  dis¬ 
agreement  among  leaders  in  the  week-day  schools  as  to 
their  aims  results  in  confusion  and  lack  of  definiteness 
in  all  phases  of  the  work.  The  only  point  at  which  the 
promoters  seem  to  be  agreed  is  in  promoting  religious 
education,  but  they  have  left  the  definition  of  religion 
out  of  account.  When  religion  was  defined  simply  in 
terms  of  creed,  one  had  only  to  state  that  he  aimed  to  get 
the  child  to  believe  his  way.  Now  that  large  numbers  in 
all  our  Churches  are  thinking  of  religion  in  larger  terms, 
we  are  facing  a  more  difficult  situation.  The  time  has 
come  to  restate  our  aims  in  religious  education.  In 
place  of  purely  intellectual  instruction  we  must  substi¬ 
tute  the  development  of  adequate  living:  life  must  re¬ 
place  knowledge;  character  must  be  our  goal  rather  than 
mere  belief.  It  is  to  this  conviction  that  the  week-day 
movement  is  leading  us.  We  must  satisfactorily  define 
our  destination  before  we  can  move  forward  zvith  vigor 
and  success. 

(b)  The  Week-Day  School  Curriculum. — The  “knowl¬ 
edge  view”  of  the  course  of  study  has  been  foremost  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  build  the  courses  for  week-day 
schools,  as  is  true  of  most  of  the  other  institutions  for 
religious  education.  A  great  sign  of  hope,  however,  is 
the  awakening  consciousness  of  the  inadequacy  of  a  course 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


19 1 

based  upon  such  a  view.  We  are  coming  to  see  that  it 
fails  to  take  into  account  the  fact  that  life  is  more  than 
knowledge,  that  growth,  religiously  as  well  as  in  other 
respects,  is  dependent  upon  action  and  feeling  as  well  as 
thinking.  The  knowledge  view  also  fails  to  recognize 
the  unity  of  the  growth-process.  There  can  be  no  transfer 
of  ideas  into  action  unless  those  ideas  have  previously 
been  associated  with  that  action.  If  the  aim  of  our  relig¬ 
ious  training  is  Christian  living,  that  training  must  be 
based  upon  living  itself.  What  we  need  is  not  merely  a 
series  of  lessons  hut  a  course  of  experiences  in  Christum 
living,  of  such  a  nature  that  each  experience  leads  to  a 
desire  to  live  the  Christian  life  in  a  still  larger  circle. 

In  such  a  program  of  activity  all  values,  including  the 
Biblical,  are  conserved  and  enriched.  The  nearest  ap¬ 
proaches  to  it  at  the  present  moment  are  probably  the 
Canadian  Standard  Efficiency  Program  and  the  Y.M.C.A. 
Christian  Citizenship  Training  Program.  To  introduce 
such  programs,  however,  without  understanding  their 
purposes  and  methods  would  be  futile. 

(c)  The  Process  of  Teaching. — As  might  be  expected 
from  the  above  tendencies,  the  teaching  process  in  the 
week-day  school  is  in  need  of  vital  transformation.  The 
imparting-of-knowledge  method,  dependent  upon  force 
and  stern  authority  in  the  days  of  our  forefathers,  and 
carried  on  from  that  time  to  the  present  by  “sugar- 
coating”  devices,  must  give  way  to  a  method  of  directing 
social  activity.  In  such  direction  provision  must  be  made 
for  self-initiative,  democratic  cooperation,  and  discrimina¬ 
tive  thinking  on  the  part  of  boys  and  girls.  It  is  this 
view  which  is  prevailing  in  our  better  public  schools. 
Public-school  leaders,  who  are  acquainted  with  this  ap¬ 
proach  to  the  teaching  process,  are  anxious  that  the 
leaders  in  the  schools  of  religion  follow  the  same  method. 
Helping  children  to  engage  in  Christian  enterprises  which 
they  choose  for  themselves  and  assisting  them  so  to  judge 
the  experience  which  they  have  had  that  they  are  led  on 


i92  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

to  further  and  larger  enterprises — this  is  the  place  of 
the  teacher  of  religion. 

It  is  thus  seen  that  there  is  an  insistent  demand  for 
changes  which  are  almost  revolutionary  in  our  entire 
process  of  religious  education.  The  week-day  movement, 
which  is  developing  with  such  promise  of  success,  has 
probably  done  more  than  any  other  institution  to  make  us 
conscious  of  a  need  for  change.  We  are  faced  with  a 
dilemma.  We  find  the  causes  of  the  week-day  movement 
in  two  great  demands,  the  demand  for  more  religious 
education  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  insistence  upon  the 
application  of  educational  principles  on  the  other.  To 
plant  more  and  more  institutions  of  religious  education, 

>  r-* : 

as  fast  as  we  can,  but  at  the  sacrifice  of  educational  prin¬ 
ciples,  will  not  carry  us  far  ahead.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  stress  modern  methods  of  education,  which  is  the 
avowed  purpose  of  the  week-day  movement,  any  sacrifice 
in  the  numbers  of  schools  will  be  more  than  compensated 
for  by  the  new  quality  of  work. 

4.  The  Future  of  the  Movement 

A  new  movement  in  the  field  of  religious  education  is 
before  us,  calling  for  assistance.  To  find  a  constructive 
path  of  advance  will  have  value  not  only  in  the  case  of 
the  week-day  school,  but  for  all  religious  education  as 
well.  In  the  light  of  our  study  the  following  suggestions 
for  the  future  would  seem  to  be  important. 

(a)  There  Must  Be  an  Increased  Educational  Em¬ 
phasis. — Regardless  of  the  number  of  schools  founded, 
there  should  be  a  searching  examination  of  educational 
theory  and  practice  as  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  best  centers 
of  education.  The  principles  and  practices  thus  discovered 
should  be  applied  earnestly  to  the  field  of  religious  educa¬ 
tion  in  general  and  the  new  week-day  school  in  particular. 
Even  if  it  means  that  we  found  few  new  schools,  we 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


193 


must  follow  this  policy.  Widespread  establishment  of 
organizations  which  are  called  schools  of  religion  but 
which  fail  when  measured  by  educational  standards,  in¬ 
vites  ridicule  of  the  Church’s  work  on  the  part  of  edu¬ 
cators  and,  on  our  own  part,  dismay.  Delaying  for  a 
time  our  interest  in  numbers  of  schools,  we  must  con¬ 
centrate  upon  the  educational  emphasis  in  religion.  We 
need  to  restate  our  aims ;  the  course  of  study  must  be 
reorganized  upon  a  better  basis ;  the  teaching  process 
must  be  approached  from  the  daily  lives  of  boys  and 
girls.  If  religion  is  of  equal  value  with  the  development 
of  skill  of  hand  and  keenness  of  thinking,  surely  it  is 
justified  in  asking  that  the  best  educational  methods  be 
applied  to  its  development.  Our  choice  of  educational 
standards  is  a  measure  of  the  value  we  place  upon  our 
religion. 

(b)  This  Means  That  Experimentation  Will  Have  to  Be 
Carried  On. — If  we  are  convinced  that  radical  changes 
are  needed,  new  methods  should  be  tried  out.  Many 
agencies,  including  the  educational  boards  of  the 
Churches,  will  have  to  set  going  experiments  based  upon 
modern  educational  theory.  It  may  be  that  a  consider¬ 
able  period  of  time  will  have  to  elapse  before  we  have 
a  full  program  and  a  method  worthy  of  recommending  to 
the  Churches.  We  want  the  best  and  that  means  trial 
and  error  and  renewed  search.  If  the  Government,  in 
its  agricultural  and  war  departments,  can  set  aside  large 
sums  of  money  and  designate  trained  men  to  discover 
new  ways  and  means  of  farming  and  carrying  on  war, 
why  should  not  the  Christian  Church  adopt  the  principle 
of  experimentation  and  set  aside  schools  of  religion  as 
experimental  centers,  with  adequate  equipment,  and  allow 
them  freedom  to  discover  the  best  ways  of  Christian 
education  ? 

In  the  case  of  the  week-day  school  we  are  face  to  face 
with  a  real  opportunity.  It  is  new;  its  leaders  are  open- 


194  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

minded;  it  is  unencumbered  with  traditions  as  to  curri¬ 
culum  and  use  of  time.  Before  it  becomes  crystallized 
in  ways  that  are  out  of  date  educationally,  shall  we  not 
pause  and  view  the  possibilities  before  us  ?  Let  us  open 
the  way  for  these  schools  to  be  set  up  as  experimental 
centers  for  evolving  the  best  methods  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation. 

(c)  An  Adequate  Leadership  Must  Be  Trained. — All 
this  makes  necessary  the  training  of  efficient  leaders.  We 
have  the  beginnings  of  a  professional  leadership  in  a 
small  number  of  supervisors  and  teachers  in  the  week¬ 
day  movement  who  are  giving  their  entire  time  to  the 
work.  The  number,  however,  is  quite  insufficient  to  meet 
the  demands  with  which  we  are  confronted.  Serious  and 
definite  efforts  must  be  made  to  supply  trained  workers 
for  the  new  type  of  religious  education.  Our  colleges 
and  seminaries  must  be  equipped  with  departments  of 
religious  education  competent  to  furnish  them.  The  work 
of  training  leaders  cannot  be  turned  over  to  any  member 
of  the  faculty  who  happens  to  take  an  interest.  Nor  can 
the  Church  leave  the  entire  responsibility  to  the  colleges 
and  seminaries  and  simply  ask  them  to  turn  out  leaders. 
There  must  be  a  definite  understanding  that  such  leaders 
are  wanted  and  the  young  men  and  women  who  are  called 
to  the  teaching  profession  in  the  service  of  the  Church 
must  be  assured  a  place  worthy  of  their  preparation. 

(d)  The  Entire  Religious-Educational  Program  Must 
Be  Correlated. — The  existence  of  the  week-day  school 
and  the  Sunday  School  side  by  side  compels  us  to  face 
squarely  the  matter  of  correlation.  In  place  of  division 
of  interests  and  competition  of  programs,  we  must  unify 
the  agencies  that  seek  to  help  the  boys  and  girls  in  their 
growth  toward  maturity.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  week¬ 
day  movement  and  the  Sunday  School  be  fitted  together. 
That  is  essential  but  will  not  solve  the  real  problem.  Our 


WEEK-DAY  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


195 

trouble  is  not  at  this  point  alone.  All  the  other  agencies 
— young  people’s  society,  mission  study  groups,  Y.M.C.A. 
and  Y.W.C.A.,  Scouts,  and  various  organizations  that 
make  contributions  to  a  full  program  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation— are  usually  unrelated  and  often  rival  claim¬ 
ants  for  the  same  children’s  time.  We  need  to  face 
our  educational  task  as  a  whole  and  cease  wasting  our 
energy  in  petty  competition  among  various  agencies.  This 
question  of  securing  a  unified  program  is  so  important  that 
we  shall  study  it  fully  in  the  following  chapter. 

If  the  week-day  school,  as  we  have  described  it,  is 
seen  not  to  be  such  a  remarkable  thing  as  it  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  be,  there  is  no  reason  for  discouragement.  That 
we  do  not  continually  congratulate  ourselves  upon  our 
great  accomplishments  is  no  indication  of  retrogression. 
The  greatest  danger  is  that  we  should  become  easily 
satisfied.  The  week-day  movement  is  not  a  failure ;  it  is 
a  success.  It  has  done  some  things  which,  to  be  sure,  it 
did  not  intend  to  do,  but  it  has  revealed  to  us  our  position. 
It  has  shown  us  that  we  need  more,  or  rather,  better, 
education  in  religion.  It  has  called  to  our  attention  the 
fact  that  the  child’s  religious  development  is  a  matter  for 
the  week-day  as  well  as  for  Sunday.  It  has  caused  us 
to  question  and  restate  our  aims.  It  has  given  us  a  new 
vision  of  the  curriculum  and  of  the  teaching  process. 
It  has  summoned  us  to  unify  our  many-sided  program 
of  religious  education.  These  are  unlooked-for  contribu¬ 
tions,  but  they  are  blessings  in  disguise. 


CHAPTER  IX 


SECURING  A  UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PRO¬ 
GRAM  FOR  THE  CHURCH 

The  present  organization  of  the  local  Church  for  its 
teaching  work,  as  reviewed  in  the  two  preceding  chapters, 
reveals  a  wealth  of  existing  agencies  and  a  large  amount 
of  educational  effort.  The  impression  made  upon  us, 
however,  is  one  of  confusion  and  inefficiency.  Instead  of 
an  educational  program  as  a  whole,  consciously  prepared 
from  the  standpoint  of  ministering  to  the  full  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  individual  who  is  the  object  of  all  our  teach¬ 
ing,  we  have  a  series  of  partial  programs,  often  competing 
with  each  other  for  the  time  of  the  same  individuals,  each 
seeking  to  secure  attention  practically  regardless  of  the 
contributions  made  by  others. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that  we  have  been  trying  to 
meet  our  responsibility  for  religious  education  by  increas¬ 
ing  the  number  of  agencies  rather  than  by  planning  care¬ 
fully  for  a  single  rounded  and  comprehensive  program 
designed  to  secure  the  full  development  of  the  person 
taught.  It  is  inconceivable  that  we  should  continue  to 
be  satisfied  with  a  method  under  which  each  organization 
presses  its  own  special  program  and  it  is  no  one’s  re¬ 
sponsibility  to  consider  what  program  will  best  serve  the 
whole  development  of  the  whole  man. 

i.  The  Need  for  a  Unified  Program  in  the  Local 
Church 

What  is  urgently  needed  in  the  local  Church  is  a  cen¬ 
tral  body  which  shall  be  responsible  for  its  whole  teaching 
work,  whose  business  it  shall  be  to  study  its  whole  educa- 

196 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


197 


tional  problem  and  plan  comprehensively  for  it.  Only 
in  this  way  can  the  many  unrelated  agencies — Sunday 
School,  mission  study  class,  young  people’s  society,  week¬ 
day  school,  Daily  Vacation  Bible  School,  and  the  other 
organizations — be  related  to  each  other  in  such  a  way 
as  to  secure  an  effective  educational  plan. 

Such  a  committee  on  religious  education  (or  whatever 
it  may  be  called)  will  study  carefully  the  local  situation 
and  discover  the  number  of  children,  youth,  and  adults 
for  whose  teaching  it  is  properly  responsible.  It  will 
outline  in  detail  the  material  and  the  methods  necessary 
in  order  to  supply  what  these  persons  ought  to  have  at 
every  stage  of  their  development.  It  will  appraise  sym¬ 
pathetically  the  resources  available  in  each  existing  agency 
and  suggest  modifications  and  adjustments  which  any  of 
these  should  make  either  in  program  or  method  in  order 
to  fit  in  more  helpfully  with  the  work  of  the  others.  It 
will  give  due  consideration  to  the  influences  which  oper¬ 
ate  helpfully  upon  them  from  other  sources,  such  as  the 
home,  the  library,  the  public  school,  the  community  center. 
It  will  develop  plans  for  the  selection  and  training  of 
teachers  and  leaders  in  the  various  activities  of  the  Church 
and  the  community.  It  will  undertake  to  secure  adequate 
rooms  and  equipment  for  all  the  teaching  work  of  the 
Church  and  arrange  a  schedule  for  the  various  agencies, 
in  order  that  these  may  be  used  to  the  best  advantage.  It 
will  make  an  annual  estimate  of  the  cost  of  the  entire 
edocational  program,  to  be  raised  as  a  part  of  the 
Church’s  regular  budget  for  current  expenses. 

Such  an  educational  plan  means  the  development  of 
what  may  rightly  be  called  the  “Church  School — not  as 
an  additional  agency  or  a  new  name  for  an  old  agency, 
but  as  the  correlation  of  all  the  many  phases  of  the  teach¬ 
ing  work  of  the  Church.  It  implies  that  the  Church,  as 
such — not  simply  certain  organizations  or  agencies — feels 
its  corporate  responsibility  for  exercising  the  teaching 
function  and  proposes  to  take  it  seriously. 


198  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

A  carefully  formulated  program  of  teaching  such  as  this 
requires  skilled  supervision.  A  Church  school,  properly 
conducted,  with  all  its  departments  harmoniously  adjusted 
and  in  working  order,  will  need  a  trained  superintendent 
and  a  staff  of  assistants,  their  number  depending  upon  the 
size  and  resources  of  the  Church.  In  some  instances  this 
responsibility  may  devolve  upon  the  pastor,  if  he  has  the 
requisite  training;  in  the  larger  Churches,  upon  a  director 
of  religious  education.  In  any  case,  the  task  is  a  technical 
one,  calling  for  a  high  degree  of  knowledge,  experience, 
and  skill.  The  director  of  religious  education  is  more 
than  a  business  executive ;  he  is  an  educator,  familiar  with 
the  religious  problems  of  childhood  and  youth;  a  tactful 
manager,  knowing  how  to  secure  team  work  between 
pupils  and  teachers  as  well  as  between  the  leaders  of  the 
different  organizations  which  make  up  the  school  as  a 
whole;  and  an  interpreter,  making  clear  to  leaders  the 
values  which  lie  in  their  respective  tasks,  and  to  parents 
and  to  the  community  the  needs  which  must  be  served. 

What  has  been  said  regarding  the  need  of  organizing 
the  work  of  the  many  diverse  educational  factors  into 
one  closely  articulated  program  for  the  whole  Church 
is  as  yet  mainly  a  counsel  of  perfection.  Few,  if  any. 
Churches  can  claim  that  this  ideal  has  yet  been  achieved. 
But  the  trend  of  progress  is  all  in  this  direction.  Many 
Churches  have  a  committee  on  religious  education  charged 
with  oversight  of  all  the  teaching  work,  though  it  has 
not  always  won  for  itself  sufficient  prestige  to  be  able  to 
deal  vigorously  and  constructively  with  local  agencies.  In 
some  cases  it  is  composed  of  the  executives  of  the  Sunday 
School,  Young  People’s  Society,  Missionary  Committee, 
and  similar  organizations  and  finds  itself  hampered  by 
the  disposition  of  each  of  these  officials  to  regard  himself 
as  the  representative  and  champion  of  the  interests  of  his 
particular  organization  rather  than  as  an  advocate  of  the 
best  possible  system  of  teaching  and  training  for  the 
youth  of  that  locality,  by  whatever  agency.  Sometimes 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


199 


the  Sunday  School  regards  itself  as  the  logical  common 
denominator,  inasmuch  as  its  classes  touch  all  ages,  and 
feels  that  the  Young  People’s  Society  and  the  Missionary 
Committee  should  come  in  as  subordinate  parts  of  its  own 
organization.  In  other  localities  where  an  enthusiasm  has 
been  created  for  week-day  religious  education  the  energies 
flow  out  in  this  direction,  without  any  special  regard  for 
what  the  Sunday  School  is  now  doing  or  any  effort  to 
relate  the  week-day  school  to  the  existing  curricula  of 
the  Sunday  School  and  other  agencies.  Seldom  do  we 
find  a  Church  which  has  both  the  ability  and  the  courage 
and  also  the  resources  to  enable  it  to  grapple  afresh  with 
its  teaching  problem  and  organize  itself  effectively  into 
a  unified  agency  for  accomplishing  its  whole  teaching 
task. 

It  is  not  altogether  surprising  that  this  should  be  the 
case.  It  is  only  very  recently  that  there  has  been  any 
real  comprehension  of  the  complexity  and  delicacy  and 
difficulty  of  the  Church’s  teaching  task.  Now,  however, 
the  time  has  come  when  the  situation  must  be  faced  and 
dealt  with  positively.  We  must  have  a  program  that 
thinks  first  and  only  of  the  individual  to  he  taught  and 
thinks  of  him  as  a  whole .  He  will  never  he  properly 
served  hy  any  combination  of  unrelated  agencies ,  each 
of  which  is  planning  for  only  a  segment  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual's  life ,  without  regard  to  a  general  plan  for  the 
development  of  his  life  as  a  unified  whole . 

2.  The  Need  for  a  Unified  Program  for  the  Com¬ 
munity  as  a  Whole 

To  get  a  unified  program  of  religious  education  for 
the  parish  is  not  enough.  Outside  the  parish  are  other 
parishes ;  outside  all  of  the  parishes,  as  now  conceived, 
are  hosts  of  children,  young  people,  and  adults  for  whom 
the  Church  is  responsible.  The  responsibility  of  the 
Church  as  a  whole  is  coterminous  with  the  community. 

In  the  development  of  an  adequate  educational  system 


200  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


for  the  whole  community  the  Church  is  now  hampered  at 
various  points.  We  may  summarize  the  situation  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

(a)  It  is  hampered,  in  its  attempt  to  provide  for  all 
the  youth  of  the  community  or  neighborhood,  from  the 
fact  that  it  must  share  with  many  other  Churches  a  gen¬ 
eral  responsibility  for  community  welfare.  In  early  New 
England  the  Church  was  definitely  regarded  as  existing 
for  the  whole  community  and  the  community  was  gen¬ 
erally  called  upon,  through  taxation,  for  its  support.  But 
with  the  free  development  of  independent  Churches  and 
denominations  parish  lines  have  become  obliterated,  so 
that  several  Churches  of  different  denominations,  with 
buildings  situated  in  close  proximity  to  each  other,  are 
drawing  their  membership  from  the  same  geographical 
area.  The  result  of  this  tendency  has  been  to  weaken 
a  sense  of  responsibility  for  any  definite  area  or  any 
defined  group  outside  its  own  present  membership.  Very 
often  a  Church  does  not  know  what  its  own  constituency 
is  or  should  be,  as  distinguished  from  the  constituencies 
of  other  Churches.  This  uncertainty  of  community  re¬ 
lationship  has  often  been  disastrous,  leading  to  the  over¬ 
looking  of  considerable  areas  of  the  population,  especially 
those  who  are  most  in  need  of  being  served.  A  Roman 
Catholic  Church  considers  itself  responsible  for  a  defi¬ 
nite  area  or  parish  and  can  lay  its  hands  upon  children  of 
Catholic  parentage  anywhere  in  that  community.  A 
Protestant  Church  generally  cannot,  nor  will  it  be  pos¬ 
sible  for  the  independent  Protestant  organizations  to  deal 
similarly  with  Protestant  children  except  as  the  move¬ 
ment  for  cooperation  or  union  proceeds  much  further 
than  it  has  gone  at  present. 

Having  no  common  community  plan  and  relying  upon 
haphazard  contacts  or  upon  competitive  “contests”  as  a 
means  of  recruiting  Sunday-School  membership,  the 
Churches  find  themselves  confronted  at  present  with  the 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


201 


fact  that  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  there  are  but 
some  20,000,000  persons  (of  all  ages)  enrolled  in  Protest¬ 
ant  Sunday  Schools ;  while  in  Continental  United  States, 
exclusive  of  Canada,  there  are  over  27,000,000  children 
and  youth  (under  25  years  of  age)  nominally  Protestant 
who  are  not  enrolled  in  any  Sunday  School.  Of  those 

t 

who  are  enrolled,  half  the  pupils  attend  less  than  half  the 
time.  It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  the  Protestant 
Churches  are  far  from  fulfilling  their  responsibility  to 
the  community  as  a  whole. 

(b)  The  local  Church  is  hampered,  in  its  attempt  to 
provide  a  complete  program  of  religious  education,  from 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  directly  related  to  the  other  agencies 
in  the  community  which  exercise  a  religious  influence. 
The  home,  the  playground,  the  public  school,  the  public 
library,  the  public  press,  are  all  potential  factors  in  re¬ 
ligious  education,  and  over  these  the  local  Church  has 

1 

no  control.  Besides  these  there  are  other  agencies  which 
aim  more  positively  to  exercise  a  religious  influence  and 
which  may  stand  either  as  competitors  or  as  allies  of  the 
local  Church  in  its  teaching  work ;  such  agencies,  for 
example,  as  the  young  Men’s  and  Young  Women’s  Chris¬ 
tian  Associations  or  the  local  Boy  Scout  executive.  Over 
their  activities  neither  the  individual  Church  nor  all  the 
local  Churches  together  have  authority.  Even  the  local 
Sunday  School  Association  usually  does  not  look  to  the 
local  Churches  for  direction.  Yet  the  children  and  youth 
of  the  local  Church  are  getting  something  from  one  or 
all  of  these  community  agencies.  It  is  by  no  means  an 
easy  problem  for  the  local  Church  to  determine  in  the 
case  of  each  individual,  or  group  of  individuals,  just  what 
they  are  already  receiving  from  other  agencies  and  what  it 
should  itself  supply. 

(c)  The  Church  is  hampered,  in  its  attempt  to  provide 
a  program  suited  to  community  needs,  by  the  fact  that 
existing  programs  are  prepared  outside  of  the  community, 
by  denominational  or  interdenominational  agencies  which 


202  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


are  working  with  the  nation  or  the  denomination  in  mind, 
rather  than  the  local  community  and  the  individual  in  the 
local  community.  The  result  is  that  most  of  the  pro¬ 
grams  which  are  sent  to  the  local  Church  are  so  general 
in  nature,  so  stiff  with  standardization,  as  to  be  adapted 
to  no  particular  community.  They  are  like  composite 
photographs,  looking  like  everybody  in  general  and  no¬ 
body  in  particular. 

The  local  Sunday  School  Associations,  although  de¬ 
signed  to  provide  for  united  effort  among  the  Sunday 
Schools  of  a  community,  have  generally  been  weak  in 
community  consciousness  and  weakly  related  to  the 
Churches  of  the  community.  Too  seldom  have  they  been 
locally  controlled,  studying  local  conditions  and  adapting 
material  and  methods  to  local  needs,  and  too  often  they 
have  been  directed  from  without,  by  State  or  National 
Association,  and  used  merely  as  a  promoting  agency  for 
a  standardized  program.  The  local  Young  People’s 
Unions  have  fallen  into  the  same  weakness.  Their  com¬ 
munity  programs,  instead  of  being  the  result  of  com¬ 
munity  study  and  so  consciously  adapted  to  their  own 
needs,  have  usually  been  taken  over  ready-made  in  some 
standardized  form  offered  to  the  local  union  to  be  pro¬ 
moted  through  its  subsidiaries,  regardless  of  the  other 
agencies  operating  on  the  same  group  of  young  people. 
The  local  Y.M.C.A.  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the 
Y.W.C.A.  also  tend  to  look  to  outside,  or  overhead 
officials,  for  direction  and  attempt  to  promote  for  local 
use  their  more  or  less  rigidly  standardized  programs, 
without  full  regard  for  what  the  Churches  are  doing  or 
what  most  needs  doing  in  the  particular  city.  Scouts  and 
Campfire  organizations  lend  themselves  readily  to  use  by 
the  local  Church  but  do  not  offer  programs  which  are 
very  easily  adaptable.  Excellent  as  they  are  in  purpose 
and  in  general  plan  they  are  so  specific  in  detail  that  it  is 
by  no  means  always  easy  to  make  them  an  integral  part 
of  a  larger  program. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


203 


(d)  The  Church  is  hampered,  in  its  attempt  to  corre¬ 
late  these  programs  of  the  various  organizations  and 
agencies  into  one  closely  articulated  teaching  program,  by 
the  fact  that  the  makers  of  the  programs ,  which  come 
from  outside  sources,  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  get 
together  and  correlate  their  own  work.  If  only  the  pro¬ 
gram-making  agencies  would  take  the  necessary  time  in 
conference  and  joint  planning  to  see  just  where  and  how 
the  program  of  each  can  best  be  made  to  fit  into  the  pro¬ 
gram  of  the  others,  and  would  then  build  together  a  com¬ 
mon  program  for  the  local  community  and  the  local 
Church,  the  problem  would  be  tremendously  simplified. 

With  the  existing  division  of  responsibility  there  is 
bound  to  be  neglect  of  certain  areas  and  individuals,  espe¬ 
cially  of  the  most  needy,  and  overlapping  and  friction  with 
respect  to  those  who  are  naturally  regarded  as  the  most 
desirable  subjects.  Even  those  who  come  under  the 
Church's  teaching  influence  are  bound  to  be  imperfectly 
served,  as  we  have  seen,  for  the  reason  that  no  one  agency, 
and  no  mere  combination  of  uncoordinated  agencies,  is  in 
a  position  to  plan  for  the  whole  life  of  a  pupil.  The 
individual  is  acted  upon  by  a  number  of  more  or  less 
unrelated  agencies,  each  planning  its  own  independent 
program.  The  result  is  that  certain  areas  of  the  pupil’s 
life  are  cared  for — over-cared  for,  one  may  say — by 
teaching  influences  which  do  not  properly  supplement 
each  other,  not  infrequently  duplicating  effort  for  both 
teacher  and  taught,  while  certain  other  areas  are  rela¬ 
tively  neglected. 

We  have  therefore  in  the  community  as  a  whole  a 
situation  not  unlike  that  in  the  local  Church,  only  on  a 
larger  scale.  The  problem  is  rendered  still  more  diffi¬ 
cult  because  of  the  fact  that  not  only  is  the  educational 
task  divided  up  between  uncorrelated  and  autonomous 
agencies,  each  regarding  itself  as  responsible  to  an  outside 
authority,  but  also  because  of  the  further  complicating 
fact  that  the  Churches  which  have  to  deal  with  these 


204  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

agencies  are  wholly  independent  and  unrelated,  with  no 
machinery  for  systematic  coordination  of  effort. 

The  Protestant  Churches,  as  Churches,  must  get  to¬ 
gether  for  community  work.  This,  indeed,  is  now  taking 
place  in  a  growing  number  of  communities  through 
federations  or  councils  of  Churches.  In  such  a  council 
there  should  be  one  department  concerned  with  the  whole 
teaching  task  of  the  Churches.  All  the  agencies  for  re¬ 
ligious  education,  including  the  many  Churches  and  their 
organizations,  together  with  the  other  institutions  of 
religious  influence  outside  the  Churches  themselves,  need 
to  be  brought  under  some  form  of  unified  oversight. 

Such  a  department  of  religious  education  should  be 
competent  to  deal  with  every  phase  of  the  teaching  pro¬ 
cess,  and  should  be  able  to  plan  a  community  program  to 
meet  community  needs,  based  on  a  survey  of  the  com¬ 
munity — the  population  and  its  varied  needs  and  the 
resources  and  available  agencies  with  which  to  meet  those 
needs.  The  department  of  religious  education  should  be 
competent  to  suggest  how  best  the  Sunday  School,  the 
Young  People’s  Societies,  the  Christian  Associations,  and 
the  other  local  agencies  may  best  cooperate  in  serving 
the  entire  community  and  all  ages  in  a  carefully  corre¬ 
lated  program.  It  should  determine  what  portion  of  the 
teaching  task  should  be  accomplished  through  week-day 
schools  of  religion  or  vacation  schools.  It  should  outline 
a  curriculum  for  the  training  of  teachers  and  leaders  of 
clubs  for  all  these  agencies,  and  suggest  what  portion 
of  this  training  can  best  be  given  by  local  Churches  and 
what  should  be  provided  cooperatively  in  a  Community 
Training  School.  For  the  effective  working  out  of  such 
a  plan,  at  least  in  large  communities,  there  will  doubt¬ 
less  need  to  be  a  Community  Director  of  Religious  Educa¬ 
tion,  and  some  system  of  supervision  which  shall  be  re¬ 
lated  not  only  to  the  Sunday  Schools  but  likewise  to  all 
other  agencies. 

It  will  be  no  easy  undertaking  to  work  out  a  plan 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM  205 

which  will  deal  comprehensively  yet  effectively  with  the 
needs  of  the  community  as  a  whole  and,  at  the  same  time, 
leave  to  each  Church  and  organization  the  freedom  it 
may  demand  as  an  independent  and  autonomous  body, 
but  those  Churches  which  place  the  welfare  of  the  com¬ 
munity  above  denominational  or  organizational  advantage 
will  find  that  the  problem  is  not  impossible  of  solution. 

3.  The  Need  for  Cooperation  Among  the  National 
Agencies 

What  the  local  Churches  and  the  local  community  can 
do  in  developing  a  unified  and  comprehensive  educational 
program  will  inevitably  be  seriously  affected  by  the  poli¬ 
cies  of  the  national  organizations.  These  organizations, 
denominational,  inter-denominational  or  non-denomina- 
tional  as  the  case  may  be,  exercise  a  profound  influence 
upon  the  local  situation  because  of  their  vigorous  promo¬ 
tion  of  educational  programs  through  their  community 
agencies.  The  existence,  side  by  side,  of  these  many  or¬ 
ganizations  without  any  clear  understanding  as  to  the 
field  to  be  covered  by  each,  results  in  a  complicated  situa¬ 
tion  which  we  must  examine  carefully  and  frankly. 

(a)  The  Denominational  Organization  of  the  Church's 
Teaching  Work. — Most  of  the  Protestant  denominations 
have  their  own  national  societies  or  boards  for  dealing 
with  educational  interests  and  some  of  them  have  several 
distinct  and  independent  agencies  to  care  for  particular 
phases  of  the  educational  enterprise.  Most  of  the  Sunday- 
School  Boards  now  comprise  several  departments ;  a  pub¬ 
lishing,  or  business  department,  an  editorial  department, 
and  an  educational  department.  Theoretically  these  de¬ 
partments  are  in  close  cooperative  relationship ;  in  practice, 
however,  it  is  often  difficult  to  secure  the  degree  of  co¬ 
operation  that  is  ideally  desirable,  owing  to  the  difference 
in  the  policies  of  the  several  departments. 

There  is  a  great  temptation  for  the  publishing  interests 


20 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


to  adopt  commercial  standards,  especially  when  the  publi¬ 
cation  of  books  as  well  as  of  lesson  material  is  a  part  of 
their  task.  In  theory,  a  Sunday-School  Board  exists  for 
service,  not  for  profit,  and  the  task  of  the  publishing 
house  is  to  provide  educational  material  for  the  denomi¬ 
nation  at  the  lowest  possible  cost.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  publishing  houses  have  not  infrequently  regarded 
themselves  as  business  corporations  in  competition  with 
commercial  publishing  houses.  Some  denominations  have 
even  encouraged  these  organizations  to  adopt  such  a  policy 
by  appropriating  the  profits  accruing  from  the  sale  of 
Sunday-School  material  to  benevolent  purposes,  thus  at 
one  stroke  discouraging  the  development  of  a  better  type 
of  Sunday-School  literature  if  it  seemed  unlikely  to  yield 
an  immediate  profit.  To  overcome  this  danger  of  the  ex¬ 
ploitation  of  the  Sunday-Schools  by  the  spirit  of  commer¬ 
cialism,  denominations  should  definitely  locate  the  major 
responsibility  for  Sunday-School  curricula  and  standards 
and  methods  in  a  national  board  of  education,  and  should 
hold  the  editorial  and  publishing  departments  responsible 
for  creating  and  circulating  the  requisite  material  prac¬ 
tically  at  cost. 

Not  only  is  the  division  of  responsibility  as  between 
educational,  editorial,  and  publishing  departments  dis¬ 
astrous  ;  it  is  almost  equally  disastrous  to  perpetuate  sepa¬ 
rate  agencies  in  the  denomination  for  dealing  with  differ¬ 
ent  aspects  of  the  teaching  work  of  the  local  Church. 
All  the  phases  of  the  denomination’s  work  in  religious 
education  need  to  be  brought  as  speedily  as  possible  under 
the  direction  of  a  national  board  of  education.  What 
good  reason  can  be  given  for  lodging  the  agency  which 
is  to  promote  the  organization  of  Sunday  Schools  within 
a  Home  Missionary  Society?  The  entire  educational  effi¬ 
ciency  of  a  Sunday  School  may  be  determined  by  its  loca¬ 
tion  and  by  the  original  impetus  imparted  to  it  by  the 
method  of  its  organization.  Why  should  there  be  a 
wholly  separate  agency  for  dealing  with  young  people’s 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


207 


work,  either  through  Christian  Endeavor  Societies, 
Ep worth  Leagues,  Young  People’s  Unions,  or  other  organ¬ 
izations?  Such  a  procedure  makes  difficult,  if  not  almost 
impossible,  the  correlation  of  their  programs  of  study  and 
activities  with  the  Sunday-School  curriculum  designed  for 
young  people  of  the  same  ages. 

So  also  with  mission  study.  The  insistence  of  Home 
and  Foreign  Boards,  both  the  general  and  the  Women’s 
Boards,  that  curriculum  material  for  education  in  mis¬ 
sions  must  be  entirely  in  the  hands  of  their  own  educa¬ 
tional  secretaries  and  that  the  promotion  of  mission- 
study  classes,  training  schools,  and  plans  for  training  in 
benevolence  must  also  be  under  their  own  exclusive  con¬ 
trol  shows  a  singular  lack  of  confidence  between  the 
missionary  agencies  and  the  regular  educational  agencies 
of  the  Church.  The  reasons  why  the  situation  has  been 
thus  are  easy  to  understand;  but  it  ought  to  be  recog¬ 
nized  clearly  that  a  continuance  of  the  policy  of  separate 
production  and  promotion  means  that  the  missionary 
material,  however  excellent  in  quality,  fails  to  reach  more 
than  a  comparatively  small  percentage  of  the  number  who 
ought  to  profit  by  its  use. 

Education  in  missions  and  benevolence  should  be  thor¬ 
oughly  integrated  with  the  rest  of  the  educational  pro¬ 
gram,  not  urged  upon  the  Churches  as  an  extra-curriculum 
feature  which  only  the  exceptionally  devoted  will  adopt. 
The  Churches  must  have  the  assistance  of  the  missionary 
secretaries,  of  course,  in  supplying  material  for  mission¬ 
ary  education,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  the  Mis¬ 
sion  Boards  are  the  only  agencies  that  are  in  a  position 
to  procure  the  best  material;  but  the  attempt  of  Boards 
to  control  the  preparation,  promotion,  and  use  of  this 
material  is  ill-advised  and  shortsighted.  One  result  of 
doing  so  is  to  keep  missionary  education  practically  di¬ 
vorced  from  the  main  educational  program  of  the 
Church.  All  these  specialized  phases  of  the  denomina¬ 
tion’s  teaching  work  should  be  under  the  direction  of  its 


208  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


national  board  of  education,  which,  of  course,  should 
cooperate  closely  with  all  the  agencies  carrying  on  the 
missionary  work  of  the  Church. 

The  work  of  the  College  Boards  also  needs  to  be  in¬ 
tegrated,  as  in  most  denominations  is  not  now  the  case, 
with  the  work  of  an  inclusive  board  of  religious  education. 
Here,  as  well  as  in  other  fields,  peculiar  problems  must 
of  course  be  dealt  with,  and  a  special  department  of  the 
general  board  may  be  necessary.  But  these  specialized 
problems  cannot  be  solved  in  the  best  manner  except  in 
the  light  of  the  whole  teaching  enterprise.  The  providing 
of  college  courses  in  religion,  for  example,  stands  in  a 
certain  necessary  relation  to  entrance  requirements.  But 
these  ought  not  to  be  fixed  by  college  authorities  or  by  the 
college  boards  of  Churches  acting  independently;  such 
requirements  should  be  viewed  also  in  their  relation  to 
the  curriculum  of  the  Church  school.  Or,  assuming  that 
the  denominational  college  is  to  serve  the  Church  as  a 
training  school  for  teachers  and  leaders,  the  courses  neces¬ 
sary  for  their  training  ought  not  to  be  decided  upon  by 
College  Boards  alone ;  surely  those  who  are  in  more  im¬ 
mediate  touch  with  the  needs  of  Church  schools  have  a 
contribution  to  make. 

Again,  the  religious  welfare  of  college  students  as  a 
community  group  is  made  all  the  more  difficult  by  the 
isolation  of  the  student  group  from  the  local  Churches 
and  by  the  attitude  of  indifference  to  student  interests 
and  needs  on  the  part  of  many  Churches  in  college  towns. 
The  solution  of  this  problem  will  often  require  radical 
modification  of  policies  on  the  part  of  college  authorities, 
many  of  whom  discourage  the  student  body  from  mingling 
in  community  activities,  and  no  less  radical  readjustments 
of  program  on  the  part  of  local  Churches.  For  such 
readjustments  the  College  Boards  need  the  assistance  of 
other  denominational  agencies  which  are  in  close  touch 
with  the  local  Churches,  especially  of  those  which  have 
to  do  with  their  teaching  program. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM  209 

The  organization  of  all  the  teaching  activities  of  the 
denomination  under  the  direction  of  a  national  board  is 
one  of  the  most  urgent  needs  of  the  present  moment.  It 
is  unreasonable  and  futile  to  expect  the  local  Church  to 
effect  the  unification  of  its  teaching  activities  so  long  as 
the  national  denominational  agencies  to  which  it  looks 
for  stimulation  and  guidance  continue  separate,  unrelated, 
and  often  competitive  and  even  contradictory  programs 
and  policies.1  Under  present  conditions  the  educational 
enterprise  even  tends  to  defeat  itself,  for  the  greater  the 
demand  for  expansion  of  the  teaching  program  the  greater 
the  expansion  of  all  programs  and  the  more  intense  the 
competition  between  them. 

(b)  The  Interdenominational  and  N on- denominational 
Organisations. — The  situation  in  the  local  Church  and 
community  is  made  still  more  complex  by  the  existence  of 
national  organizations  which  are  either  interdenomina¬ 
tional — in  the  sense  of  being  created  by  and  responsible 
to  the  official  denominational  agencies  of  religious  educa¬ 
tion — or  non-denominational  and  wholly  independent. 
Thus  in  the  Sunday-School  field  and  attempting  to  provide 
for  all  age-groups,  there  are,  in  chronological  order,  the 
American  Sunday  School  Union,  the  International  Sunday 
School  Association,2  the  International  Sunday  School  Les¬ 
son  Committee,  the  Sunday  School  Council 2  and  the 
World’s  Sunday  School  Association.  Operative  upon  spe¬ 
cial  age-groups,  or  dealing  with  specialized  phases  of  re¬ 
ligious  education,  are  the  Young  Men’s  and  Young 

1  The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  probably  made  the  best 
provision  on  a  national  scale  for  the  merging  of  all  its  teaching 
activities,  Biblical  instruction,  catechetical  instruction,  worship, 
service,  missionary  education,  elementary  education,  secondary 
schools,  colleges,  and  theological  seminaries,  and  teacher  training 
in  a  General  Board  of  Religious  Education.  The  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.  is  now  taking  a  similar  though  not  as 
comprehensive  step. 

‘Recently  merged. 


2io  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


WometTs  Christian  Associations,  the  Missionary  Educa¬ 
tion  Movement  and  other  agencies  of  missionary  educa¬ 
tion,  the  organizations  included  in  the  Interdenomina¬ 
tional  Young  People’s  Commission,  the  Boy  and  Girl 
Scout  organizations,  and  the  Campfire  Girls.  A  third 
type,  devoted  to  the  training  or  recruiting  of  leadership, 
is  represented  by  the  Council  of  Church  Boards  of  Edu¬ 
cation,  the  Student  Volunteer  Movement,  the  Board  of 
Missionary  Preparation,  the  Conference  of  Theological 
Seminaries.  The  Religious  Education  Association  is  a 
professional  organization,  non-denominational  and  non- 
administrative,  devoted  primarily  to  research.  In  order 
to  appreciate  the  effect  of  these  many  unrelated  agencies 
upon  the  teaching  work  of  the  Church  it  will  be  necessary 
to  consider  each  one  briefly. 

A.  Organizations  in  the  Field  of  the  Sunday 
School 

The  American  Sunday  School  Union . — The  oldest  ex¬ 
isting  Sunday-School  agency  in  America  is  primarily  a 
home  missionary  agency,  conceiving  its  function  to  be  the 
organization  and  maintenance  of  undenominational,  or 
“union,”  Sunday  Schools  in  communities  which  would 
otherwise  have  none.  Its  greatest  service  has  been  as  a 
pioneer  promotional  agency  among  the  newer  communities 
of  the  West  and  Southwest.  As  such  it  has  been  instru¬ 
mental  in  organizing  a  very  large  number  of  Sunday 
Schools.  It  maintains  a  publishing  plant  to  provide  lesson 
material  of  an  inexpensive  and  undenominational  char¬ 
acter  for  its  mission  schools.  It  has  an  ample  endowment 
which  is  supplemented  by  gifts  from  the  Churches  and 
from  individuals,  and  from  the  sale  of  its  periodicals. 

While  not  failing  to  appreciate  the  great  and  honorable 
service  which  has  been  rendered  by  this  agency  in  the  past, 
we  have  to  recall  that  the  situation  in  the  Churches  is  not 
the  same  as  it  was  a  generation  ago.  Most  of  the  denomi- 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


21 1 


nations  now  have  “Extension  Departments’"  in  their 
Sunday-School  boards,  whose  duty  it  is  to  provide  Sunday 
School  facilities  in  needy  communities.  In  those  com¬ 
munities  where  denominations  are  already  located  there  is 
at  least  the  possibility  of  overlapping  and  waste  and 
friction  between  the  policies  and  programs  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Sunday  School  Union  and  those  of  these  denomina¬ 
tions  which  may  be  operating  in  the  same  field.  In  those 
communities  where  none  of  the  denominations  are  repre¬ 
sented,  it  may  be  said  that  they  ought,  either  individually 
or  unitedly,  to  be  as  enterprising  as  the  American  Sunday 
School  Union.  Furthermore,  it  may  be  accepted  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  principle  that  every  local  Sunday  School  should  be 
related  locally  to  some  Church  or  group  of  Churches,  and 
it  ought  to  be  easier  to  establish  such  relationship  through 
agencies  controlled  by  the  Churches  than  through  an 
agency  over  which  the  Churches  exercise  no  direct  control. 
It  would  seem  in  every  way  desirable  to  effect  some  man¬ 
ner  of  union  between  this  historic  agency  and  the  extension 
department  of  the  International  Sunday  School  Council 
of  Religious  Education  whereby  all  possible  competition 
may  be  eliminated  and  increased  effectiveness  achieved. 

The  International  Sunday  School  Association ,  though 
not  under  the  control  of  the  churches  as  denominations, 
for  50  years  determined  the  content  and  sequence  of 
curriculum  material,  the  organization,  methods,  standards, 
and  type  of  leadership  of  the  great  majority  of  Sunday 
Schools  in  the  United  States  and  Canada.  Its  system  of  or¬ 
ganization  has  been  most  comprehensive  and  complete,  ex¬ 
tending  from  the  local  community,  up  through  the  County, 
Provincial,  or  State  Associations,  to  the  National  and  In¬ 
ternational  Convention  and  Executive  Committee.  While 
it  has  not  attempted  to  publish  lesson  material,  it  has  pro¬ 
vided  outlines  which  have  lent  themselves  to  tremendously 
profitable  exploitation  by  the  publishing  houses  of  the 
various  denominations.  So  strong  has  been  its  hold  upon 
the  local  community  and  the  Sunday  School  in  the  local 


2i2  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Church  that  only  in  exceptional  cases,  until  quite  recently, 
did  these  show  a  disposition  to  question  its  methods,  its 
plans  or  its  leadership.  But  its  strength  has  been  also  its 
greatest  weakness.  The  prolonged  advocacy  of  uniform 
lessons,  the  passion  for  quantity  production,  the  over¬ 
emphasis  upon  evangelism  to  the  neglect  of  other  aspects 
of  education,  the  production  and  promotion  of  rigid, 
standardized  programs  and  methods,  stood  in  the  way  of 
educational  advance.  The  demand  for  higher  standards 
led  to  a  rapid  development  of  denominational  organization 
and  vigorous  assertion  of  denominational  responsibility. 
The  recent  development  of  the  Association  and  its  merger 
with  the  agency  representing  the  denominational  boards 
will  be  described  on  a  later  page. 

The  International  Sunday  School  Lesson  Committee, 
originally  the  creation  of  the  International  Sunday  School 
Association,  and  formed  for  the  purpose  of  providing  the 
outline  for  Uniform  Lessons,  practically  controlled  the 
curriculum  of  religious  education  in  the  majority  of  Sun¬ 
day  Schools  of  the  Protestant  evangelical  denominations 
for  40  years.  During  that  period  it  limited  the  material  to 
such  as  could  be  used  by  all  ages  simultaneously.  Not 
only  was  there  no  serious  recognition  of  the  differing 
capacities  and  needs  of  different  ages  and  groups;  there 
was  no  provision  for  the  teaching  of  missions,  Church 
history,  or  worship,  except  as  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  were 
set  aside  for  reading  the  lesson  material  for  the  day,  and 
for  singing  and  prayer  at  the  option  of  the  superintendent. 
There  was  no  real  place  for  activity  as  a  factor  in  educa¬ 
tion,  no  plan  or  program  of  training  in  service  and  self- 
expression.  Happily  a  new  day  has  been  dawning  in  the 
preparation  of  lesson  material,  even  though  the  principle 
of  graded  lessons  cannot  yet  be  said  to  be  fully  established. 
It  is  not  strange  that  graded  lessons,  which  have  enjoyed 
hardly  a  decade  of  trial,  have  not  yet  completely  made 
their  way  against  a  system  which  for  four  times  that 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM  213 

period  depended  upon  stereotyped  methods  very  different 
from  those  upon  which  graded  instruction  is  based. 

The  movement  for  graded  lesson  material  carried  with 
it  also  a  demand  for  better  methods  of  organization  and 
supervision  and  for  more  expert  teachers.  These  urgent 
needs  found  early  recognition  in  the  denominational 
Sunday-School  Boards  and  soon  occasioned  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  new  “educational  departments,”  which  set  them¬ 
selves  to  the  task  of  formulating  Sunday-School  aims  and 
standards,  outlining  courses  for  teacher-training,  organiz¬ 
ing  training  classes  and  institutes  and  summer  schools. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  this  new  activity  within  the  de¬ 
nominations,  the  International  Association  also  soon  under¬ 
took  to  promote  similar  undertakings  within  the  local  and 
State  associations,  with  the  result  that  the  two  types  of 
leadership  soon  found  themselves  in  serious  competition 
with  frequent  occasions  for  friction.  At  this  juncture  the 
denominational  boards  united  to  form  the  Sunday  School 
Council  of  Evangelical  Denominations,  with  four  depart¬ 
ments,  or  sections :  the  Editorial,  the  Educational,  the  Ex¬ 
tension  (which  two  were  later  united  into  one),  and  the 
Publishers’.  The  Council  soon  asserted  as  its  prerogative 
the  right  of  fixing  standards,  providing  training  courses, 
granting  credit,  and  determining  methods,  leaving  to  the 
International  Association  the  task  of  promoting  organiza¬ 
tion,  methods,  and  standards  as  determined  by  the  de¬ 
nominational  boards. 

It  was  inevitable  that  some  closer  relationship  should  be 
established  between  these  three  great  national  agencies 
with  interdenominational  functions.  It  was  a  cause  for 
no  little  satisfaction  when  adjustments  were  made 
whereby  the  International  Lesson  Committee  became  a 
joint  creation  of  the  International  Association,  the  Sunday 
School  Council  and  the  denominations  acting  directly 
through  the  Sunday-School  Boards.  The  effect  was  ap¬ 
parent  in  the  new  policies  adopted  by  the  International 
Lesson  Committee,  whereby  it  has  now  been  determined 


214  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

to  abandon,  as  soon  as  possible,  the  issuance  of  outlines 
for  uniform  lessons,  replacing  these  with  lessons  graded 
for  successive  age-groups.  The  yearly  graded  lessons  are 
still  to  be  maintained  and  in  addition  the  Committee  is  to 
undertake  the  preparation  of  a  complete  curriculum,  in 
which  will  be  indicated  appropriate  and  correlated  activi¬ 
ties  for  expression  and  training  and  correlated  devotional 
or  worship  material.  So  far  as  the  Sunday  School  is  con¬ 
cerned,  the  program-making  agencies  are  now  unified. 

It  is  a  further  cause  for  great  satisfaction  that  adjust¬ 
ments  have  been  made  whereby  the  Sunday  School  Coun¬ 
cil  and  the  International  Sunday  School  Association  have 
completed  a  process  of  unification  through  their  merger 
in  the  new  body  known  as  the  International  Sunday 
School  Council  of  Religious  Education.  The  plan  of  re¬ 
organization  preserves,  it  is  believed,  the  desirable  features 
of  both  these  organizations,  bringing  together  into  one 
body,  under  its  several  departments,  editors,  publishers, 
extension  and  educational  promoters.  In  the  new  organ¬ 
ization  there  is  recognition  of  a  two-fold  relationship  and 
responsibility,  to  the  denominational  boards  as  their  official 
agent  of  cooperation,  and  to  the  community  organizations 
made  up  of  local  Sunday  Schools.  The  International  Sun¬ 
day  School  Lesson  Committee  is  now  an  organic  part  of 
the  International  Sunday  School  Council. 

The  World's  Sunday  School  Association  was  originally 
formed  as  the  counterpart  of  the  International  Sunday 
School  Association  for  the  promotion  of  Sunday-school 
work  throughout  the  rest  of  the  world.  While  the  uni¬ 
form  lesson  system  was  dominant  the  methods  of  organi¬ 
zation  and  promotion  in  both  bodies  were  similar.  With 
the  rise  of  the  Sunday  School  Council,  however,  and  the 
awakening  of  a  sense  of  denominational  responsibility  to 
serve  the  children  of  foreign  lands,  and  with  the  confu¬ 
sion  occasioned  in  mission  fields  by  the  discontinuance  of 
cooperation  between  the  British  and  American  sections 
of  the  Lesson  Committee  and  consequent  competition 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


2iS 


between  two  sets  of  uniform  lessons,  some  readjustments 
in  the  method  of  organization  of  the  World’s  Sunday 
School  Association  were  found  to  be  necessary.  At  pres¬ 
ent  it  is  under  the  management  of  a  Board  of  Directors 
made  up  of  representatives  both  of  the  denominational 
Mission  Boards  and  of  the  Sunday  School  Boards. 

The  adjustments  already  made  among  these  various 
agencies  represent  an  important  stage  in  the  process  of 
development,  not  the  final  outcome.  There  is  widespread 
demand  for  a  more  comprehensive  program  for  the  teach¬ 
ing  work  of  the  Church.  The  Sunday-School  agencies 
have  to  remember  that  it  does  not  lie  within  their  province 
to  plan  the  whole  program  of  the  Church’s  teaching  work. 
Powerful  as  they  are,  they  cannot  exercise  control  over 
other  teaching  agencies  which  are  also  recognized  by  the 
Churches  as  their  own  creation;  nor  over  other  interde¬ 
nominational  or  undenominational  agencies,  which, 
though  not  controlled  by  the  Churches  directly,  still 
operate  effectively  upon  certain  special  groups  of  chil¬ 
dren  or  young  people. 

In  other  words,  the  movement  toward  coordination  of 
organizations  and  correlation  of  programs  must  go  still 
further.  Before  we  can  hope  to  have  a  situation  that  is 
at  all  ideal,  all  the  agencies  which  have  to  do  with  the 
outlining  of  curricula,  the  preparation  of  lesson  material, 
the  suggesting  of  activities  of  service  or  worship,  the 
development  of  a  missionary  spirit,  the  training  in 
benevolence,  the  promotion  of  methods  of  teaching,  the 
organization  of  schools — Sunday  Schools,  week-day 
schools,  community  schools,  institutes,  summer  schools — 
the  determining  of  aims  and  standards,  the  development 
of  plans  for  supervision,  the  serving  of  special  groups, 
must  be  brought  into  a  close  and  vital  unity — a  unity 
that  is  not  dominated  by  any  one  educational  agency 
but  rests  on  thorough  understanding  and  mutual  appre¬ 
ciation.  Just  as  the  teaching  agencies  of  single  denomi¬ 
nations  need  to  he  united  under  one  Board  of  Education , 


21 6  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


so  the  teaching  agencies  of  the  Churches  acting  coopera¬ 
tively  need  to  be  brought  together  into  an  Educational 
Council  of  the  Churches,  in  which  all  the  varied  educa¬ 
tional  functions  shall  receive  due  recognition. 

Moreover,  the  curriculum-making  agencies,  at  least, 
need  to  be  located  in  close  physical  proximity.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  the  International  Sunday  School  Lesson  Commit¬ 
tee,  the  Missionary  Education  Movement,  the  Program 
Committee  of  the  Young  People’s  Commission,  the  text¬ 
book  and  lesson-making  agencies  of  the  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciations,  and  possibly  others,  should  all  be  located  in  the 
same  building,  or  at  least  have  convenient  and  systematic 
provision  for  constant  conference. 

B.  Organizations  Doing  a  Specialized  Work 

The  Missionary  Education  Movement,  now  under  the 
general  guidance  of  the  educational  departments  of  the 
denominational  mission  boards,  has  done  much  to  bring 
the  Churches  to  a  realization  of  the  place  of  missionary 
education  in  the  teaching  program  and  to  provide  stimu¬ 
lating  information  regarding  the  missionary  enterprise. 
On  the  whole,  it  has  conceived  of  the  missionary  enterprise 
broadly,  assuming  that  the  Church  is  interested  in  all  that 
pertains  to  the  social  as  well  as  the  individual  welfare  of 
all  men  everywhere.  It  has  also  conceived  of  the  educa¬ 
tional  enterprise  in  similar  fashion  and  its  summer  con¬ 
ferences  for  the  training  of  teachers  and  leaders  have 
been  characterized  by  a  high  degree  of  educational  insight. 
The  Movement  has  made  a  distinct  contribution  to  the 
new  educational  movement  not  only  through  its  text-books 
but  through  its  utilization  of  the  dramatic  method,  through 
pageantry,  hymns,  prayers,  and  programs  of  activity  and 
benevolence. 

The  movement  for  efficient  missionary  education  has 
been  seriously  hampered  by  the  division  of  the  missionary 
forces  themselves  into  Foreign  Boards  and  Home  Boards, 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


217 


and  these,  again,  into  agencies  which  represent  the  work  of 
the  Church  as  a  whole  and  agencies  representing  the  work 
of  women.  The  important  work  of  the  women’s  boards 
has  found  separate  centers  in  the  Council  of  Women  for 
Home  Missions  and  the  Central  Committee  on  the  United 
Study  of  Foreign  Missions. 

While  these  divisions  of  the  missionary  enterprise  are 
wholly  artificial  and  of  value  for  administrative  con¬ 
venience  only,  it  has  nevertheless  been  found  necessary 
to  recognize  each  of  these  agencies  in  the  pro¬ 
gram  of  publication,  the  usual  method  having  been  to 
publish  each  year  a  series  of  books  representing  each  of 
these  aspects  of  the  missionary  undertaking.3  In  the  pro¬ 
motion  of  mission  study  classes,  moreover,  even  within 
the  same  denomination,  there  is  not  infrequently  found 
a  curious  spirit  of  competition  between  home  and  foreign 
missionary  agencies,  or  between  the  general  boards  and 
the  women’s  boards.  It  has  been  customary  for  each 
agency  to  promote  its  own  type  of  study  among  the 
Churches  more  or  less  independently. 

An  even  more  serious  difficulty  has  been  the  separation 
of  the  program  of  missionary  education  from  the  general 
teaching  program  of  the  Church  as  operative  in  the  Sun¬ 
day  School.  The  result  is  that  both  phases  of  education 
are  one-sided,  or  else  overlapping  and  duplicating.  Either 
the  Sunday-School  lessons  develop  interest  and  motive  but 
fail  to  provide  a  program  of  expressional  activity,  while 
the  mission  study  classes  emphasize  participation  in  mis¬ 
sionary  enterprises  before  the  missionary  motive  has  been 
sufficiently  developed;  or  else  each  must  attempt  to  pro¬ 
vide  both  programs,  distinct  and  separate  from  each  other. 


*The  Council  of  Women  for  Home  Missions  and  the  Mis¬ 
sionary  Education  Movement  now  cooperate  in  the  production 
of  a  single  program  of  publication  for  education  in  home  missions. 
The  Missionary  Education  Movement  and  the  Central  Committee 
on  the  United  Study  of  Foreign  Missions  also  join  in  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  certain  books. 


218  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  missionary  education  has,  relatively, 
suffered  neglect,  notwithstanding  the  tremendous  expendi¬ 
ture  of  effort  in  the  preparation  of  text-books  and  the 
promotion  of  classes.4 

Two  contrasted  ideals  of  missionary  education  con¬ 
tribute  to  the  continued  separation.  According  to  one, 
missionary  education  is  a  phase  of  propaganda  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  resources  needed  for  carrying  on 
the  missionary  enterprise.  The  impulse  toward  missionary 
education  undoubtedly  took  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  ad¬ 
ministrative  officers  began  to  realize  that  such  a  program 
was  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  the  missionary  enter¬ 
prise.  According  to  the  other  ideal,  the  development  and 
expression  of  the  missionary  motive  is  an  integral  part  of 
all  religious  education,  without  which  the  Church’s  teach¬ 
ing  work  cannot  be  Christian  in  the  truest  sense.  Doubt¬ 
less  all  would  agree  that  the  second  of  these  statements  is 
the  correct  conception,  but  as  it  works  out  in  practice 
missionary  boards  have  sometimes  been  slow  to  admit 
that  they  are  responsible  for  any  aspects  of  missionary 
education  which  do  not  seem  likely  to  yield  imme¬ 
diate  results  in  increased  contributions  or  in  additions  to 
the  number  of  recruits,  while  at  the  same  time  they  have 
been  loath  to  relinquish  control  of  missionary  education 
and  to  provide  for  its  incorporation  in  the  Church’s  larger 
teaching  program  lest  the  missionary  note  should  not  re¬ 
ceive  the  proper  emphasis.  The  time  should  soon  come 
when  the  teaching  and  program-making  agencies  of  the 
mission  boards  will  participate  in  a  larger  Educational 
Council  of  the  Churches,  making  their  contribution  to  a 
rounded  program  at  each  stage  of  its  development  and 
gladly  making  such  adjustments  in  the  prevailing  methods 
of  missionary  education  as  are  clearly  shown  to  be  wise. 

The  Interdenominational  Young  People’s  Commission, 
formed  but  a  few  years  ago,  is  composed  of  representa- 


4Cf.  pp.  155-157. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


219 


tives  of  denominationally  controlled  young  people’s 
agencies,  such  as  the  Epworth  League  and  the  Baptist 
Young  People’s  Union,  and  also  representatives  of  de¬ 
nominational  boards  or  committees  having  in  charge  young 
people’s  work,  and  in  addition  representatives  of  the 
Young  People’s  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor,  which  is 
not  under  denominational  control.  As  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  there  are  often  serious  conditions  of  over¬ 
lapping,  competition,  and  friction  in  the  local  community 
and  the  local  Church  between  the  Young  People’s  socie¬ 
ties,  the  organized  classes  of  the  Sunday  School,  and  the 
classes  for  missionary  education,  all  largely  recruited  from 
the  same  age-group.5  The  local  Church  is,  however, 
almost  powerless  to  bring  these  agencies  into  real  co¬ 
operation  and  unity  so  long  as  the  State  and  National 
organizations  of  these  respective  bodies  maintain  their 
wholly  separate  existence.  Clearly,  there  is  great  need 
that  this  national  organization  should  also  find  a  place  in 
an  Educational  Council  of  the  Churches,  and  coordinate 
its  program  with  the  larger  teaching  program  of  the 
Churches. 

The  work  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Y.W.C.A.,  while 
generally  regarded  both  by  them  and  by  the  community 
at  large  as  being  a  form  of  interdenominational  activity 
and  supported  by  “Church  people,”  is  for  the  most  part 
carried  on  in  other  buildings  apart  from  Church  property 
and  is  under  the  direction  of  an  administrative  force  over 
which  the  Churches,  as  such,  have  no  control.  Moreover, 
the  young  people  who  attend  the  clubs  and  classes  of  the 
Christian  Associations,  whether  connected  with  Churches 
or  not,  usually  attend  not  as  members  of  Churches  or  of 
Sunday  Schools,  but  as  members  of  the  Association ;  thus 
the  benefits  they  receive  are  not  usually  associated  in  their 
minds  with  the  institution  which  inspired  its  leadership 
and  whose  members  provide  the  resources  for  its  mainte- 


6Cf.  pp.  149-155- 


220  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


nance.  At  the  same  time  both  of  the  Associations  are 
highly  specialized  agencies  of  religious  education,  with 
carefully  adapted  programs  of  instruction  and  expression 
based  upon  long  and  intimate  study  of  the  needs  of  the 
various  age-groups  and  social-groups  which  make  up  the 
local  constituency.6 

It  would  be  more  than  gratuitous  to  criticize  these  or¬ 
ganizations  for  doing,  on  the  whole,  very  effectively  a  work 
which  the  local  Churches,  acting  individually,  could  hardly 
hope  to  accomplish.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  certain  that 
the  Church  organizations,  as  at  present  constituted,  could, 
of  their  own  initiative,  provide  for  such  cooperative  work 
a  direction  that  would  be  as  enterprising  and  vigorous  as 
the  Associations  seem  to  be  able  to  secure  from  the  com¬ 
munity  at  large.  ‘Many  of  the  Association  leaders  them¬ 
selves,  however,  agree  that  it  is  very  desirable  that  the 
teaching  work  of  the  Associations  should  be  brought  into 
much  closer  relation  to  the  teaching  work  of  the  Churches. 
If  the  Churches  are  to  depend  upon  the  Associations  for 
providing  opportunities  for  club  work,  recreation,  and  ex- 
pressional  activity,  then  the  teachers  of  classes  in  the 
Churches  and  the  leaders  of  boys’  and  girls’  activities 
should  together  formulate  a  common  program.  And  this 
cooperative  work  in  the  local  community  will  be  greatly 
facilitated  if  the  national  organizations  of  the  Y.M.C.A. 
and  Y.W.C.A.  can  be  so  related  to  an  Educational  Council 
of  the  Churches  that  the  educational  leaders  of  the  de¬ 
nominations  and  the  corresponding  officials  in  the  Asso¬ 
ciations  can  not  only  be  cognizant  of  each  other’s  plans 
but  cooperate  in  building  a  common  program  for  boys  and 
girls  and  young  people. 

Scout  and  Campfire  Organizations  are  still  further  re¬ 
moved  from  the  immediate  field  of  the  Church’s  teaching 
activity,  so  far  as  their  control  is  concerned,  being  wholly 
independent  of  the  Churches  and  not  restricted  to  use  by 


e  Cf.  pp.  168-170. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM  221 

avowedly  religious  agencies.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
come  even  closer  to  the  life  of  the  Churches,  in  that  they 
meet  in  Church  buildings  and  become  a  part  of  the 
Church’s  teaching  program  when  organized  under  Church 
auspices.  Their  programs,  however,  do  not  become  an 
integral  part  of  the  Church’s  program,  save  as  they  are 
embodied  by  the  Church  in  its  general  scheme.  There  is 
no  provision  at  present,  though  there  might  well  be,  for 
actually  correlating  the  teaching  of  the  Church  with  Scout 
or  Campfire  activities.  Such  correlation  might  be  worked 
out  so  that  these  activities  would  become  a  vital  part  of 
the  Church’s  program  if  representatives  of  these  organiza¬ 
tions  at  their  national  headquarters  were  to  sit  as  con¬ 
sultative  members  of  the  Educational  Council  of  the 
Churches,  the  need  for  which  we  now  see  at  every  turn. 

C.  Organizations  for  the  Training  and  Recruiting 
of  Leadership 

The  Council  of  Church  Boards  of  Education ,  composed 
of  the  official  representatives  of  the  denominational 
Boards  which  are  responsible  for  the  work  of  the  de¬ 
nominational  schools  and  colleges  and  religious  work  at 
State  Universities,7  at  first  thought  may  seem  to  be  quite 
apart  from  the  teaching  work  of  the  Church  in  the  ordi¬ 
nary  parish.  But,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out,  the 
work  of  the  Church  Boards  of  Education  needs  the  co¬ 
operation  both  of  the  Sunday  School  Boards  and  the  local 
Churches  in  college  communities.  Requirements  for 
college  entrance  in  such  subjects  as  Bible  study  must  take 
account  of  the  Churches’  general  program  of  Bible  study ; 
courses  of  study  for  college  students  may  well  be  provided, 
in  part  at  least,  by  local  Churches,  whose  programs  must  be 
adjusted  for  this  purpose;  college  courses  in  Bible,  in 
psychology,  in  education,  and  in  history,  designed  to  aid 

7  The  teaching  work  of  the  Church  in  college  and  university 
is  discussed  in  subsequent  chapters. 


222  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


in  the  development  of  leadership  for  the  Churches’  teach¬ 
ing  work,  need  to  be  constructed  in  full  knowledge  of  the 
demands  to  be  made  upon  such  leadership.  It  is  important, 
therefore,  that  the  Council  of  Church  Boards  and  the 
agencies  having  to  do  with  religious  education  in  the 
local  parish  be  related  to  each  other  in  a  general  Educa¬ 
tional  Council  of  the  Churches  in  much  the  same  way 
that  the  College  Board  of  a  single  denomination  needs  to 
be  related  to  its  Board  of  Religious  Education. 

Among  the  agencies  carrying  on  religious  work  on  the 
campus  there  are  serious  problems  of  relationship  to  be 
considered.8  The  religious  education  of  college  students 
has  been  largely  delegated  in  many  institutions  to  volun¬ 
tary  student  organizations  which  are  under  the  lead¬ 
ership  of  the  Student  Department  of  the  Young  Men’s 
and  Young  Women’s  Christian  Associations.  These  or¬ 
ganizations  have  prepared  a  great  variety  of  courses  of 
Bible  study  and  mission  study  designed  especially  for 
student  groups.  It  is  now  coming  to  be  recognized  that, 
however  well  these  courses  may  be  adapted  to  meet  the 
special  needs  of  college  students,  the  manner  of  their  pro¬ 
motion  often  makes  it  difficult  to  attach  the  student  closely 
to  the  local  Church.  It  is  urgently  necessary  for  the 
Council  of  Church  Boards,  which  is  under  the  control  of 
the  Churches,  and  the  Christian  Associations,  which  are 
autonomous,  to  plan  together  the  construction  and  pro¬ 
motion  of  a  common  program  and  the  development  of  the 
fullest  student  loyalty  to  the  Church  and  its  enterprises, 
without  making  it  necessary  for  students  to  choose  be¬ 
tween  this  larger  loyalty  and  the  more  immediate  but 
lesser  loyalties. 

There  are  several  other  organizations,  national  in  scope, 
of  an  undenominational  character,  which  are  concerned 
with  more  specialized  phases  of  recruiting  or  training  for 
religious  leadership.  Of  these,  the  Student  Volunteer 

8  This  subject  will  be  more  fully  considered  in  the  two  follow¬ 
ing  chapters. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


223 


Movement  and  the  Committee  on  Missionary  Preparation 
are  particularly  concerned  with  the  enlistment  and  pro¬ 
fessional  training  of  those  who  are  to  devote  their  lives 
to  missionary  service.  The  Conference  of  Theological 
Seminaries ,  the  Association  of  Biblical  Instructors  in  Col¬ 
leges  and  Universities ,  and  the  Conference  of  Church 
Workers  in  Universities  represent  important  aspects  of 
specialized  work  which  have  a  very  immediate  bearing 
upon  the  teaching  work  which  the  Churches  carry  on  at 
home.  In  any  comprehensive  Educational  Council  of  the 
Churches  these  organizations  which  are  interested  in  the 
training  of  leaders  should  find  representation,  in  order 
that  they  may  be  brought  into  the  closest  possible  contact 
with  the  work  for  which  they  are  training  the  leaders. 

D.  Organizations  for  Study  and  Research 

Probably  the  Religious  Education  Association  has 
done  more  than  any  other  single  influence  to  awaken  the 
Churches  to  a  sense  of  their  responsibility  for  providing 
more  efficient  teaching  in  religion  and  to  stimulate  all  agen¬ 
cies  to  adopt  larger  aims,  higher  standards,  and  better 
methods.  It  includes  within  its  scope  the  whole  field  of  re¬ 
ligion  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  education  on  the  other.  This 
fact  alone  has  been  tremendously  fruitful  in  expanding  the 
popular  conception  of  religious  education.  But  a  few 
years  ago  nearly  every  Christian  educator  was  inclined  to 
think  of  his  own  field  as  the  only  one  in  which  religious 
teaching  had  attained  a  respectable  standing;  the  work  of 
the  Sunday  School,  or  of  the  Y.M.C.A.,  or  of  the  mission 
study  class,  was  hardly  deserving  of  notice.  Today  there 
are  many  more  who  are  able  to  speak  intelligently  and  ap¬ 
preciatively  of  the  work  of  all  agencies.  This  change  has 
come  about  very  largely  because  the  representatives  of 
these  various  agencies  and  aspects  of  religious  education 
have  learned  to  know  and  to  respect  each  other  in  the 
conventions  and  interim  work  of  the  Religious  Education 


224  THE  teaching  work  of  the  church 

Association.  In  addition  to  affording  a  meeting  ground 
for  all  types  of  teachers,  and  a  place  of  conference  and 
investigation,  this  organization  is  unique  in  that  it  is  open 
to  Roman  Catholic  and  Jew,  as  well  as  Protestant.  This, 
of  itself,  is  important.  It  insures  that  problems  of  relig¬ 
ious  education  shall  be  presented,  studied,  and  discussed 
in  an  atmosphere  free  from  bigotry  and  prejudice. 

In  any  Educational  Council  of  the  (Protestant) 
Churches,  the  Religious  Education  Association  ought  to 
have  representation  at  least  as  an  advisory  body  so  that 
its  facilities  for  research  and  for  wider  discussion  may  be 
more  fully  utilized  by  the  Churches.  If  some  way  could 
be  found  for  bringing  the  office  of  the  Religious  Education 
Association  and  the  central  offices  of  the  needed  Edu¬ 
cational  Council  of  the  Churches  into  close  physical 
proximity,  without  impairing  in  any  way  the  freedom  of 
the  Association  to  shape  its  own  policies  and  to  cultivate 
its  relationships  with  other  religious  and  educational 
bodies,  it  would  be  a  most  advantageous  arrangement. 

The  relation  of  such  a  Council  of  Educational  Agencies 
to  the  Churches  themselves  would  need  to  be  considered. 
It  might  be  an  organization  wholly  separate  or  it  might  be 
related  in  some  informal  way  to  the  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches,  made  up  of  official  representatives  of  most  of 
the  Protestant  denominations.  In  support  of  the  latter 
alternative  it  may  well  be  urged  both  that  the  closest  re¬ 
lation  possible  with  the  Churches  as  a  whole  is  to  be 
desired  and  that  the  Federal  Council  is  itself  coming  to 
be  an  important  research  and  educational  agency  for  deal¬ 
ing  especially  with  the  great  task  of  Christianizing  public 
opinion  on  social  and  international  questions.9 

In  any  case,  an  urgent  need,  however  it  may  be  met, 
is  correlation.  There  is  a  great  wealth  of  organizations, 
dealing  with  various  phases  of  the  Church’s  teaching 

9  Cf.  Chap.  VI,  where  we  have  discussed  the  work  of  the 
Federal  Council  in  social  research  and  education. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM  225 

work.  Each  of  them  covers  a  vital  part  of  the  field. 
None  of  them  covers  it  all.  Under  the  existing  disjointed 
arrangement  each  makes  its  program  in  ignorance  of,  or 
indifference  to,  what  is  being  planned  by  other  agencies. 
What  is  insistently  called  for  is  some  unifying  agency — 
a  central  council — in  which  each  organization  will  have 
its  proper  place,  in  which  none  will  be  expected  to  give 
up  its  essential  contribution,  but  in  which  all  will  meet 
regularly  and  sympathetically  around  a  common  table,  in 
order  to  approach  the  educational  task  as  a  whole  and  to 
formulate  policies  which  will  help  the  agencies  in  the 
local  community  to  develop  what  can  be  truly  called  a 
community  system  of  religious  education. 

At  a  conference  of  about  sixty  representatives  of  the 
various  educational  agencies,  meeting  at  Garden  City, 
L.  I.,  in  May,  1921,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Federal 
Council  of  the  Churches,  the  situation  was  faced  and  it 
was  unanimously  agreed  that  the  time  had  come  to  move 
in  this  direction.  This  conference  summarized  the  situa¬ 
tion  as  follows : 

“We  register  the  conviction  that  some  more  inclusive 
coordination  is  essential  to  the  complete  fulfilment  of  our 
whole  educational  task.  We  feel  an  imperative  need  for 
some  continuous  provision  for  conference  on  the  part  of 
all  the  agencies  carrying  on  the  many-sided  work  of  Chris¬ 
tian  education.  Such  problems  as  those  which  we  have 
considered  in  this  Conference  are  not  the  concern  of  one 
agency  alone,  or  even  of  a  group  of  agencies  covering  less 
than  the  whole  field;  they  can  be  solved  adequately  only 
as  the  various  agencies  make  their  plans  in  full  knowledge 
and  understanding  of  what  is  being  planned  by  others. 
To  awaken  the  public  conscience  to  the  need  for  Christian 
education;  to  secure  a  system  of  Christian  education  that 
shall  include  the  whole  community;  to  reach  the  groups 
outside  the  Churches  now  untouched  by  any  of  our 
agencies ;  to  relate  the  work  of  the  Sunday  School,  of  the 
agencies  for  missionary  education,  of  the  Young  People’s 
Societies,  of  the  Young  Men’s  and  Young  Women’s 
Christian  Associations,  of  the  Boy  Scouts  and  other  or- 


226  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


ganizations  in  the  local  community  more  closely  to  one 
another;  to  adjust  the  Church’s  educational  work  to  that 
of  the  public  school;  to  study  religious  education  scien¬ 
tifically  and  to  make  the  best  use  of  modern  research  in 
general  education;  to  organize  more  effectively  the  re¬ 
ligious  influences  in  the  institutions  of  higher  learning 
that  are  not  supported  by  the  churches ;  to  correlate  the 
Church’s  agencies  for  religious  education  in  the  parish 
with  her  agencies  for  religious  education  in  her  schools 
and  colleges — these  and  other  problems  all  demand  the 
united  consideration  of  all  the  agents  of  Christian  educa¬ 
tion  if  the  most  effective  program  is  to  be  achieved.” 

At  a  subsequent  conference  held  at  Forest  Hills,  L.  I., 
May  2-4,  1923,  attended  by  a  larger  and  more  representa¬ 
tive  group  of  leaders  in  all  the  various  educational  agencies 
that  we  have  considered  in  this  chapter,  a  further  step  was 
taken,  which,  it  is  hoped,  will  result  in  the  establishment 
of  a  simple  and  informal  “council  on  correlation,”  bringing 
together  for  frequent  conference  and  common  planning 
official  representatives  of  all  the  bodies  that  prepare 
curricula  of  religious  education. 

The  findings  of  this  remarkable  conference,  dealing  with 
the  principles  in  accordance  with  which  programs  of  relig¬ 
ious  education  should  be  prepared  and  correlated  and 
promoted,  are  as  follows : 

“1.  The  child  in  the  local  group  is  the  basis  of  correla¬ 
tion  of  program  material. 

“2.  Local  initiative  and  experimentation  in  program 
making  are  to  be  encouraged  and  stimulated,  even  in  the 
less  resourceful  communities,  rather  than  the  adoption  of 
prescribed  programs  of  activities. 

“3.  In  order  to  make  available  a  variety  of  source  ma¬ 
terial  in  a  form  usable  by  local  communities,  and  in  order 
to  give  them  stimulus,  help,  and  guidance,  typical  pro¬ 
grams  should  be  developed  nationally.  Such  programs 
should  grow  out  of  local  experimentation,  and  every 
effort  should  be  made  to  prevent  them  from  becoming 
fixed  and  static. 


UNIFIED  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM 


222 

“4.  National  organizations  have  important  functions  to 
perform  in  encouraging  experimentation,  comparing  the 
results  from  various  communities,  serving  as  a  clearing¬ 
house  for  successful  methods,  developing  and  training 
leaders,  and  especially  in  sensing  problems  or  plans  that 
might  be  typical  of  any  large  grouping  in  American  or 
world  society,  so  that  there  may  be  the  outlook  of  the 
larger  groupings  as  well  as  of  the  local  community. 

“5.  In  view  of  the  larger  value  which  comes  from  the 
development  of  plans  locally,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
no  one  type  of  program  can  meet  the  needs  of  every  com¬ 
munity  or  group,  programs  should  be  presented  by  the 
national  organizations  in  such  form  as  will  make  possible 
individual  selection  and  adaptation  and  stimulate  initiative 
and  resourcefulness.  Community  groups  should  work  out 
plans  locally,  using  national  programs  as  source  material 
in  meeting  different  kinds  of  situations. 

“6.  As  an  immediate  step  in  facilitating  this  procedure, 
the  common  as  well  as  the  distinctive  material  of  the  dif¬ 
ferent  programs  now  existing  should  be  codified  and  cross- 
referenced  so  as  to  make  it  more  available  for  use  in  the 
development  of  self-directed  activities. 

“7.  We  note  with  appreciation  the  fact  that  the  Com¬ 
mittee  on  International  Curriculum  of  the  International 
Lesson  Committee  plans  to  have  integrally  related  to  its 
work  on  a  Church  School  Curriculum  all  the  elements  in¬ 
volved  in  the  entire  program  of  religious  education. 

“8.  We  recommend  that  each  of  the  general  agencies 
concerned  in  religious  education  be  asked  to  name  two  rep¬ 
resentatives  to  a  Council  on  Correlation,  which  would 
serve  as  a  clearing-house  of  problems  and  plans  of  mutual 
concern.  We  recommend  that  this  Council  be  convened  at 
an  early  date  by  the  Committee  which  called  this  Confer¬ 
ence. 

“While  this  Council  will  form  its  own  organization  and 
determine  its  own  functions,  we  recommend 


228  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


“(a)  That  it  give  attention  to  the  codifying  and  cross- 
referencing  of  present  program  material ; 

“(b)  That  it  consider  the  possibility  of  further  coopera¬ 
tion  on  the  part  of  all  agencies  concerned  in  the  prepara¬ 
tion  of  program  material.” 


PART  IM 


THE  CHURCH  TRAINING  FOR 
CHRISTIAN  LEADERSHIP 


CHAPTER  X 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE 

While  the  control  of  elementary  and  secondary  edu¬ 
cation  has  almost  entirely  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
State,  in  higher  education  the  Church  still  has  large  num¬ 
bers  of  institutions  that  are  directly  under  its  influence. 
Colleges  and  universities  and  professional  schools  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  State  have  rapidly  increased  but  the  insti¬ 
tutions  which  are  supported  by  the  Church,  or  which  are 
more  or  less  definitely  associated  with  it,  continue  to  play 
an  important  part  in  higher  education.  How  is  the  Church 
dealing  with  the  task  of  religious  training  in  its  own 
institutions  ? 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Church  in  America 
has  no  adequate  system  of  religious  education  for  col¬ 
lege  or  university  students.  There  are  individuals  and 
institutions  here  and  there  that  are  eagerly  engaged  in 
pioneer  work,  but,  for  the  present,  we  must  speak  of 
religious  education  for  college  students  as  chiefly  in  the 
making.  Very  few  have  visualized  the  total  task  of  re¬ 
ligious  education  in  the  college  or  seriously  attempted  its 
accomplishment.  The  number  of  persons,  however, 
who  are  concerned  that  this  phase  of  our  educational 
work  be  developed  in  a  manner  worthy  of  its  importance 
is  now  rapidly  multiplying.  They  recognize  the  suicidal 
neglect  of  the  Church  in  this  particular.  There  has  been 
much  discussion  in  recent  years  of  the  necessity  of  pre¬ 
serving  this  crowning  phase  of  education,  which,  in  ways 
that  cannot  be  duplicated  in  this  age,  once  characterized 
American  higher  education. 

2  31 


232  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


i.  The  College  Background  Favorable  to  Religious 
Training 

There  are  certain  latent  materials  in  the  field  of  higher 
education  which,  when  exposed  to  view,  are  recognized 
as  being  of  great  value  and  affording  the  presuppositions 
of  a  high  achievement  in  religious  education.  These  ma¬ 
terials  lie  close  to  the  foundations  of  our  colleges  and 
have  often  been  covered  up  by  the  more  recent  accumula¬ 
tions.  To  recognize  them  is  of  first  importance. 

(a)  The  first  of  these  encouraging  facts  is  that 
higher  education  in  the  United  States  sprang  largely  from 
the  religious  impulse. 

More  than  five  hundred  American  universities  and  col¬ 
leges  could  be  named  which  were  founded  in  response  to 
the  religio-educational  impulse  and  recognize  some  kind  of 
affiliation  with  the  churches.  These  relationships  are  of 
many  types  and  vary  from  the  independent  institution 
whose  Church  associations  are  historical  only,  to  the  in¬ 
stitution  whose  trustees  are  appointed  and  whose  property 
is  owned  by  the  Church.  Most  of  the  institutions  fall  in 
classes  of  affiliation  between  these  extremes.1  Nearly  all 
of  the  Colonial  colleges  were  primarily  institutions  of  re¬ 
ligious  education  under  Church  direction.  Not  only  so, 
but  they  were  interested  specifically  in  one  phase  of 
religious  education,  the  training  of  men  for  the  Christian 
ministry.  President  Thomas  Clap  of  Yale,  in  a  pamphlet 

1The  Protestant  institutions  that  recognize  Church  relation¬ 
ships  other  than  historical  are:  Baptist  Northern,  29;  Baptist 
Southern,  45;  Brethren,  8;  Christian,  7;  Congregational,  24; 
Disciples,  19;  Friends,  10;  Lutheran,  35;  Methodist  Episcopal, 
44;  Methodist  Episcopal  South,  58;  Presbyterian  U.  S.,  29;  Pres¬ 
byterian  U.  S.  A.,  52;  Reformed  U.  S.,  7;  United  Brethren,  7; 
United  Presbyterian,  5;  others,  37.  Total,  416.  There  are  sev¬ 
eral  other  institutions  which  call  themselves  “Independent,”  most 
of  which  were  founded  under  Church  influences.  There  are  92 
tax-supported  colleges  and  universities.  These  numbers  vary 
slightly,  of  course,  from  year  to  year. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  233 

published  in  1754,  declared  that  “Colleges  are  Societies  of 
Ministers ,  for  training  up  Persons  for  the  work  of  the 
Ministry” ;  and  he  added,  speaking  of  Yale  College,  “The 
great  design  of  founding  this  School  was  to  Educate  Min¬ 
isters  in  our  own  Way.” 2  With  such  a  “Mother  of 
Colleges”  as  Yale  and  others  like  her,  even  though  in 
later  years  the  conception  of  the  primary  task  of  the 
college  has  been  greatly  modified,  it  would  have  been 
strange  if  succeeding  institutions  had  not  felt  strongly  the 
religious  impulse. 

In  the  founding  of  many  of  the  tax-supported  institu¬ 
tions  also  (which  we  are  to  consider  in  the  following 
chapter)  representatives  of  the  Churches  took  a  prominent 
and  sometimes  a  determining  part,  and  even  today  some 
of  the  leading  State  universities  are  presided  over  by  min¬ 
isters  of  the  Gospel.  In  many  cases  the  State  university 
presidents  are  recognized  leaders  within  the  Churches  of 
their  choice.  Most  of  these  presidents  have  been  and  still 
are  graduates  of  colleges  founded  by  the  Churches.  There 
is,  therefore,  a  general  presumption  in  the  historic  and 
administrative  relationship  even  of  our  tax-supported  in¬ 
stitutions  of  higher  learning  in  favor  of  a  system  of 
religious  education.  Such  a  system  is  coming  more  and 
more  to  be  demanded  by  the  constituencies  of  a  majority 
of  all  types  of  institutions.  If  properly  organized  and 
maintained,  it  can  contribute  to  the  development  of  the 
religious  life  of  the  nation  and  to  the  welfare  of  the 
Churches  without  being  under  unwholesome  ecclesiastical 
domination.  Such  a  system  need  be  in  no  sense  subversive 
of  the  well-recognized  principle  of  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State.  It  is  entirely  in  accord  with  the  genius 
of  American  education,  which  recognizes  religion,  morality, 
and  knowledge  as  necessary  to  good  government  and  the 
happiness  of  mankind. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  tarry  long  upon  the  causes  of  the 

*  Quoted  by  Chancellor  E.  E.  Brown  in  “The  Origin  of  Ameri¬ 
can  State  Universities.” 


234  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

decisive  departure  of  American  higher  education  from  the 
motives  which  at  first  impelled  it.  Some  of  those  causes 
have  been  pointed  out  in  the  first  chapter  under  the  gen¬ 
eral  discussion  of  the  secularization  of  American  education. 
Much  of  what  is  said  there  concerning  the  development  of 
the  lower  schools  in  separation  from  religion  applies  to  the 
institutions  of  higher  learning  also.  There  are  two  funda¬ 
mental  facts  which  should  be  kept  in  mind  in  an  attempt 
to  understand  this  development  in  our  colleges  and 
universities. 

The  first  fact  is  the  social  and  economic  transformations 
which  have  occurred  in  this  country  since  Colonial  days. 
The  amassing  of  wealth,  the  development  of  industry,  the 
influx  of  unassimilated  foreigners — all  of  these  processes 
being  accentuated  and  complicated  by  the  applications  of 
science  and  invention — produced  a  social  and  economic 
situation  strangely  different  from  that  in  which  most  of 
our  earlier  colleges  were  founded  and  made  far  more 
complex  and  extensive  demands  upon  our  educational 
institutions. 

The  other  fact  was  the  inability  or  failure  of  the 
Churches  generally  to  maintain  aggressively  the  educa¬ 
tional  point  of  view.  In  many  cases  they  antagonized  the 
incipient  sciences  and  registered  protests  against  the  free¬ 
dom  of  inquiry  for  which  the  sciences  stood.  In  the  heat 
of  debate,  of  course,  the  scientific  temper  was  not  always 
scientific.  For  whatever  reasons,  the  Churches  did  not 
provide  enough  prophetic  or  educational  talent  to  interpret 
to  their  constituencies  the  relation  of  the  rapidly  changing 
world  to  the  verities  of  religion.  Many  Churches  became 
paralyzed  as  to  their  educational  arm.  In  these  Churches 
education,  technically  defined,  largely  ceased  to  function. 
The  colleges  tended  toward  the  freedom  of  the  scientific 
spirit.  The  control  by  the  Churches  was  lost  or  weakened. 
When  some  of  the  Churches  awoke  to  the  changed  situ¬ 
ation  they  discovered  that  their  educational  work,  to  use 
the  words  of  a  well-known  bishop,  was  “without  form 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  235 

and  void,  and  darkness  was  upon  the  whole  face  of  it.” 
The  present  rising  tide  of  interest  in  education  in  the 
Church  and  the  spirit  of  cooperation  with  educational 
leaders,3  as  well  as  the  less  dogmatic  attitude  both  of 
science  and  religion,  mark  the  dawning  of  a  new  day 
in  educational  work  under  church  auspices. 

(b)  In  most  of  our  institutions  the  large  majority  of 
the  faculty  are  members  or  adherents  of  the  Protestant 
Churches. 

This  statement  applies  generally  to  all  types  of  institu¬ 
tions  :  denominational,  independent,  tax-supported.  In  the 
denominational  colleges  the  faculty  members  are  usually 
chosen  with  reference  to  their  favorable  attitude  toward 
religion,  as  well  as  with  reference  to  their  scholarship  and 
personality.  The  administration  deliberately  provides  for 
the  powerful  pedagogy  of  example.  These  faculty  mem¬ 
bers  identify  themselves  more  or  less  actively  with  the 
Church  of  their  choice,  often  they  are  officials  or  active 
workers  in  the  Church,  Their  lives  are  not  bisected  into 
an  educational  part  and  a  religious  part ;  their  lives  as  a 
whole  are  under  the  observation  of  the  students.  In  vary¬ 
ing  degrees  of  effectiveness,  they  are  professors  at  one 
and  the  same  time  of  education  and  religion.  No  one 
thinks  of  its  being  necessary  to  discriminate  between  the 


(c)  The  vast  majority  of  the  students  in  American 
colleges  and  universities  claim  membership  in ,  or  affiliation 
with ,  the  Churches. 

The  preponderance  on  the  campuses  of  students  of 
Protestant  Church  connections  is  very  striking.  Not  only 

*  A  notable  illustration  of  the  development  of  this  closer  rela¬ 
tionship  is  found  in  the  recently  organized  Congregational  Foun¬ 
dation  for  Education,  whose  Directors  are  chosen  by  the  National 
Council  of  the  Congregational  Churches.  Other  illustrations  are 
afforded  in  the  recent  educational  “forward  movements”  of  sev¬ 
eral  of  the  denominations. 


236  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

in  the  denominational  colleges  is  the  proportion  of  Church 
adherents  very  high,  frequently  reaching  well  over  95  per 
cent,  of  the  students  enrolled,  but  in  many  of  the  State 
and  independent  universities,  where  information  of  this 
kind  is  secured  from  year  to  year,  the  figures  are  scarcely 
less  remarkable.  Individual  State  institutions  report  as 
high  as  96  per  cent,  of  their  students  as  claiming  a  Church 
affiliation.  It  is  no  unusual  thing  for  a  State  university  to 
report  70  per  cent,  or  80  per  cent,  of  the  students  as 
Church  adherents.4  Statistics  have  been  secured  in  several 
States  which  show  that  while  the  Protestant  population  of 
the  State  is  as  low  as  37  per  cent,  of  the  total  population, 
no  less  than  75  per  cent,  of  the  college  and  university 
students  come  from  this  part  of  the  population.  It  is  from 
the  homes  of  Church  members,  very  largely,  that  students 
go  to  college.  To  say  the  least,  the  great  mass  of  the 
college  students  of  America  are  pre-disposed  toward  re¬ 
ligion  and  the  Church  as  its  official  symbol. 

(d)  The  structure  and  organization  of  most  college 
communities  is  favorable  to  religious  education. 

The  college  community  is  made  up  of  selected  members. 
The  students  are  usually  admitted  on  the  basis  of  character 
as  well  as  intellectual  attainments.  They  are  at  the  period 
of  youthful  aspiration  and  hope,  the  stuff  that  religion 
builds  on.  They  are  generally  seeking  the  means  of  life, 
not  immediately  the  means  of  a  living.  They  are  in  the 
epochal  process  of  orientation.  They  are  searching  for 
guiding  life  principles.  There  is  the  same  essential  ideal¬ 
ism  and  altruism  also  among  the  teachers.  These  men 
and  women  have  spent  years  in  preparation  for  a  life- 
work  whose  attitude  is  that  of  giving  rather  than  receiv¬ 
ing,  of  ministering  rather  than  being  ministered  unto.  It 
is  not  quite  modern  to  say  with  the  former  president  of 
Yale  that  a  college  is  a  “Society  of  Ministers,”  but  the 

4  It  is  impossible  to  discriminate  accurately  in  these  reports 
between  Church  membership  and  Church  preference. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  237 

great  teachers  of  a  college,  by  virtue  of  their  qualities  and 
their  dominant  purpose,  are  God’s  men  and  women,  inspir¬ 
ing  students  to  join  them  in  the  search  for  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good.  In  the  words  of  President  Had¬ 
ley,  “Teaching  is  not  instruction  but  revelation — prophet 
and  interpreter  and  pioneer  do  much  more  than  record 
their  experiences ;  they  enlighten  the  world  by  their  ex¬ 
ample.”  The  ordinary  college  is  not  sordid,  it  is  not 
commercialized,  it  is  not  materialistic.  Many  college  com¬ 
munities  are  centers  of  spiritual  life.  In  many  denomina¬ 
tional  colleges,  and  in  some  of  the  State  institutions,  the 
currents  of  wholesome  spiritual  life  are  quite  as  strong  as 
in  the  best  Church  congregations. 

The  religious  influences  which  are  operative  in  at  least 
some  of  the  best  Church  colleges  it  may  be  worth  while 
briefly  to  summarize.  At  the  morning  meal  in  the  common 
dining-room  there  is  still,  in  several  of  the  smaller  col¬ 
leges,  a  brief  Bible  reading  and  prayer,  taking  the  place 
of  the  family  devotions  to  which,  it  must  be  confessed, 
most  children  of  Church  members  are  strangers  in  the 
home.  There  is  very  commonly  a  daily  chapel  service 
which  faculty  and  students  attend,  conducted  in  a  devo¬ 
tional  spirit,  with  Bible  reading  and  prayer  and  usually  a 
short  talk  on  some  topic  of  religious,  ethical,  social,  or 
international  import.  This  successive  commitment  of  the 
several  members  of  the  faculty,  who  take  turns  in  leading 
the  chapel  services,  to  the  essentials  of  religion  would  be 
striking  if  it  were  not  taken  for  granted  by  the  college 
community.  The  college  has  the  habit  of  worshiping  to¬ 
gether,  of  thinking  together  the  same  thoughts,  often  of 
committing  itself  to  ideals  and  programs  of  the  highest 
significance.  A  powerful  and  wholesome  unity  is  de¬ 
veloped.  The  best  loyalties — such  loyalties  as  “stand  at 
the  very  heart  of  morality  and  religion” — are  developed  to 
the  institutions  of  organized  society,  the  home,  the  college, 
the  Church,  the  State.  In  not  a  few  colleges  there  are 
two  or  three  prayer  meetings  during  the  week,  attended 


238  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

and  participated  in  by  groups  of  students  and  some  faculty 
member.  There  is  a  Student  Volunteer  Band  and 
numerous  Bible  study  and  mission  study  classes,  as  well  as 
discussion  groups  and  courses  in  fundamentals  participated 
in  by  students  and  faculty.5  Each  Sunday  the  students  in 
general  attend  Church,  either  in  a  separate  college  service 
or  in  the  local  Churches,  and  many  of  them  lead  or  par¬ 
ticipate  in  some  form  of  Sunday  School  or  other  “deputa¬ 
tion”  work.  Not  infrequently  there  is  a  “Quiet  Hour”  in 
connection  with  one  or  more  dormitories  when  students, 
by  common  consent  and  the  force  of  college  tradition,  at 
least  remain  in  their  rooms  and  become  somewhat 
acquainted  with  themselves.  Some  form  of  evangelistic 
appeal  and  of  appeal  for  Christian  life  work  is  made  to 
the  students.  Often  there  is  a  college  pastor  who  devotes 
his  entire  time  to  pastoral  work  among  the  members  of 
the  college.  Usually  there  is  a  Department  of  Biblical 
Literature  in  which  regular  instruction  in  religion  is 
given.  In  an  increasing  number  of  colleges  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Biblical  Literature  is  being  succeeded  by  a  De¬ 
partment  of  Religious  Education,  with  fair  equipment  and 
personnel,  and  sometimes  with  sufficient  prestige  to  draw 
most  of  the  students  for  a  part  of  their  college  course. 

It  may  be  that  the  influences  of  religious  education  of 
most  far-reaching  import  in  these  colleges  are  to  be  found 
in  the  class  rooms  of  the  faculty  taken  as  a  whole.  All  of 
the  students  are  studying  English  and  American  litera¬ 
ture.  Much  of  this  literature  has  both  the  form  and 
substance  of  the  best  religious,  ethical,  and  social  teaching, 
and  the  expert  Christian  teacher  in  this  department  has 
at  hand  dynamic  subject-matter  for  religious  education 
which  some  have  learned  to  use  in  skilful  fashion.  Prac¬ 
tically  all  of  the  students  are  studying  also  ancient  and 
modem  history  and  the  related  subjects  of  economics, 
sociology,  and  political  science.  These  subjects  are  con- 

8  The  work  of  the  voluntary  student  organizations  is  discussed 
more  fully  in  the  following  chapter. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  239 

stantly  offering  occasions  for  Christian  interpretation.* 
The  claim  is  not  made  that  a  Christian  science  of  eco¬ 
nomics,  sociology,  and  political  science  has  been  elab¬ 
orated  ;  only  that  genuinely  Christian  men  can  in  these  de¬ 
partments  interpret  the  faith  that  rules  their  lives.  Some 
colleges  have  professors  of  philosophy  who  give  religion  its 
rightful  place  in  the  system  of  universal  thought.  Courses 
in  international  relations  are  beginning  to  be  introduced 
and  studied  from  the  standpoint  of  Christian  idealism.  The 
presence  of  foreign  students  in  large  numbers,  often 
coming  from  the  mission  schools  of  their  home  countries, 
accentuates  this  idealistic  attitude  and  interpretation. 

In  many  of  these  institutions  there  are  professors  with 
rare  talents  for  dealing  with  the  problems  of  young  people 
to  whom  the  students  naturally  gravitate  and  whom  they 
make  Father  Confessor  of  a  Protestant  sort.  In  these 
intimate  relationships  some  of  the  most  far-reaching  de¬ 
cisions  are  made  affecting  both  the  spiritual  life  and  the 
life  service  of  the  students.  This  type  of  educational 
influence  is  not  formal  but  it  approximates  very  closely 
indeed  the  favorite  method  of  the  Great  Teacher.  In 
a  less  effectual  way,  because  more  official  and  formal  and 
sometimes  with  the  covert  threat  of  legalistic  penalty,  the 
faculty  and  student  advisory  systems  assist  students  in 
making  important  choices.  A  series  of  orientation  lec¬ 
tures  sometimes  helps  to  clarify  the  minds  of  entering 
students  and  the  work  of  an  understanding  freshman 
dean  or  director  of  studies  is  of  incalculable  value.  In  a 
few  institutions  a  joint  committee  of  faculty  and  students 
has  recently  attempted  to  coordinate  these  various  courses 
and  instrumentalities  in  order  that  their  impact  on  the 
college  community  may  be  more  fruitful  and  that  with  a 

aAn  association  Secretary  at  one  of  the  great  mid-western 
State  universities,  at  the  request  of  the  president  of  the  university, 
recently  listed  the  courses  in  that  institution  of  which  the  claim 
was  made  that  they  ‘‘have  a  bearing  on  religious  work.”  There 
are  105  courses  in  the  list. 


240  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

fuller  knowledge  of  the  available  implements  of  religious 
education,  greater  effectiveness  may  be  secured. 

Such  institutions  as  have  been  described  do  not  over¬ 
emphasize  moralizing  or  preaching.  They  see  to  it  that 
among  the  winds  that  blow  about  and  upon  the  college 
campus  is  the  wind  of  religion.  The  student  hears  the 
voice  of  it.  He  may  not  know  whence  it  cometh  or  whither 
it  goeth.  He  may  hear  it  on  the  athletic  field,  or  in  the 
biological  laboratory,  or  in  the  philosophy  library.  It  sur¬ 
prises  him  not  more  to  hear  it  in  these  places  than  from 
the  desk  of  the  preacher  or  the  Bible  teacher.  Every¬ 
where  during  his  college  course  he  finds  a  new  unfolding 
of  his  universe,  of  nature  and  of  human  nature  around  him, 
and  the  laws  by  which  they  operate;  and  he  finds  the 
leaven  of  religion  within  the  processes  that  yield  him  his 
enlarging  knowledge.  Danger  is  minimized  that  he  will 
form  the  habit  of  making  obsolete  approaches  to  truth. 
He  will  not  be  aware  of  the  alleged  chasm  between  evolu¬ 
tion  and  revelation.  He  will  have  heard  of  it  as  a  bit  of 
history,  but  he  will  have  his  faith  grounded  in  a  unitary, 
not  a  bisected  world.  He  has  brought  his  religious  im¬ 
pulses  to  college ;  the  college  has  provided  a  rich  environ¬ 
ment  which  has  allowed  them  healthful  development. 

It  cannot  be  said  with  mathematical  precision  how  many 
colleges  are  able  to  command  even  inadequately  all  the 
influences  and  instrumentalities  which  we  have  been  de¬ 
scribing  above.  Almost  every  denomination  has  a  few 
colleges  of  which  this  is  an  approximately  true  picture. 
The  positive  Christian  quality  of  their  graduates  is  a 
matter  of  common  knowledge.  In  the  atmosphere  of  one 
such  college,  for  a  term  of  years,  about  one-sixth  of  the 
entire  active  force  of  one  of  the  great  national  missionary 
boards  has  been  trained.  The  number  of  men  entering 
the  Christian  ministry  on  full-time  Christian  service  for 
the  past  twenty-one  years  averages  13.7  per  cent,  of  the 
men  graduates  from  the  college.  Undoubtedly  this  is  an 
extreme  case.  There  are  some  others  like  it  in  the  magni- 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  241 

tude  of  their  contribution  to  Christian  service ;  there  are 
many  like  it  in  lesser  degree.  From  such  colleges,  however 
imperfectly  the  religious  work  has  been  carried  on,  have 
come  the  majority  of  the  leaders,  ministerial  and  lay,  men 
and  women,  of  the  Protestant  Churches. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  numerous  colleges, 
even  among  those  associated  with  the  Churches,  that  repre¬ 
sent  the  opposite  extreme  in  their  attitude  toward  con¬ 
structive  religious  culture.  The  administration  selects 
teachers  who  are  distinguished  in  the  field  of  scholarship 
but  without  especial  reference  to  personal  qualifications, 
and  particularly  to  religious  faith  and  life.  It  is  absorbed 
largely,  it  may  be,  in  the  scramble  for  needed  funds.  It 
may  sacrifice  more  important  interests  to  athletic  success. 
It  may  be  paralyzed,  as  it  approaches  its  religious  responsi¬ 
bilities,  with  the  complex  elements  of  the  student  body; 
with  the  respectability  and  wealth  and  conventionality 
which  the  students  directly  or  indirectly  represent;  with 
the  presence  of  the  liberal  and  the  conservative,  the  irre¬ 
ligious  and  unconcerned;  with  the  fear  that  with  greater 
encouragement  to  the  religious  elements  of  the  con¬ 
stituency  a  morbid  religious  atmosphere  might  be  de¬ 
veloped  or  religion  become  perfunctory  and  deadening. 
Such  a  college  may  conceive  of  religion  chiefly  as  welfare 
work  or  social  service.  It  may  turn  over  the  whole  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  religious  training  to  the  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciations  and  other  voluntary  agencies.  It  may  assume 
that  the  religious  needs  of  students  may  be  met  by  bring¬ 
ing  to  the  college  a  series  of  distinguished  preachers  who 
necessarily  work  without  an  intimate  knowledge  of  their 
task.  In  any  event,  it  is  certain  the  administration  does 
not  select  the  faculty  and  organize  the  religious  per¬ 
sonnel  and  agencies  with  the  idea  of  surrounding  the 
students  with  a  distinctive  and  consistently  religious  at¬ 
mosphere.  The  college  does  not  have  a  corporate  relig¬ 
ious  temper,  much  less  make  a  definite  religious  appeal. 

Faculty  members  chosen  in  conformity  with  a  negative 


242  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

or  halting  estimate  of  the  meaning  of  religion  in  the  edu¬ 
cational  process  are  likely  to  consider  their  responsibilities 
to  the  institution  fully  met  when  the  academic  work  of 
their  several  departments  has  been  done.  With  such  an 
administrative  philosophy  and  faculty  attitude,  it  is  most 
natural  that  students  should  become  absorbed  in  social, 
athletic,  fraternity,  and  club  expressions  of  college  life  to 
the  practical  exclusion  of  the  religious.  That  this  has 
happened  in  numerous  colleges  throughout  the  country 
must  be  admitted.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that  while 
there  is  much  in  the  structure  and  organization  of  all  of 
our  higher  institutions  of  learning  that  is  favorable  to 
religious  education,  there  are  few  if  any  that  would  claim 
they  have  attained  a  satisfactory  realization  of  their  possi¬ 
bilities.  Many  would  be  inclined,  while  admitting  their 
own  shortcomings,  to  criticize  adversely,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  lack  of  religious  training  of  students  before  they  reach 
college  age,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  failure  of  the 
graduate  schools  to  foster  the  religious  element  in  the 
specialized  training  that  follows  the  undergraduate 
course.7  Undoubtedly  there  is  much  at  both  extremes 
of  this  problem,  as  well  as  in  the  middle,  for  which  the 
Church  must  share  responsibility. 

2.  The  Teaching  of  the  Bible  in  the  College 
Curriculum 

The  curriculum  of  the  Church  college  has  usually 

shown  less  evidence  of  a  constructive  effort  to  train  for 

* 

Christian  leadership  than  is  found  in  the  more  in¬ 
formal  influences.  Too  often  it  has  followed  the 
fashion  set  by  the  curriculum  of  the  independent  or  the 

’The  Educational  Relations  Division  of  the  National  Research 
Council  recently  made  public  the  distribution  of  graduate  fel¬ 
lowships  and  scholarships  in  twelve  leading  American  uni¬ 
versities  during  the  past  five  years.  These  twelve  universities 
reported  3,377  fellowships  of  which  only  two  have  definite  re¬ 
ligious  implications— those  in  “History  of  Religions’'  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  243 

State  institution.  The  teaching  of  the  Bible  and  of  sub¬ 
jects  definitely  connected  with  the  Christian  religion  have 
too  seldom  been  given  the  commanding  place  they  deserve. 
Nor  has  there  always  been  sufficient  attention  to  pre¬ 
senting  a  Christian  interpretation  of  philosophy,  ethics, 
the  social  sciences,  and  other  subjects  of  the  regular 
curriculum. 

So  far  as  instruction  in  the  Bible  is  concerned,  one  may 
now  speak  with  increasing  assurance.  The  Bible  is  being 
well  taught  in  a  considerable  number  of  institutions.  The 
custom  of  “farming  out”  Bible  teaching  among  the  pro¬ 
fessors  has  been  replaced,  to  a  large  extent,  by  the  or¬ 
ganization  and  equipment  of  a  department,  or  at  least  a 
chair,  of  Biblical  Literature  and  History,  with  especially 
trained  instructors.8  The  multiplication  of  these  Biblical 
departments  has  been  one  of  the  striking  developments 
of  recent  educational  history.  A  generation  ago  there 
were  no  such  departments.  The  Bible  has  become  a  col¬ 
lege  study  in  American  colleges  since  the  beginning  of 
the  twentieth  century. 

The  total  number  of  such  chairs  or  departments  in 
American  colleges  and  universities  is  now  over  300  and 
their  number  and  quality  are  steadily  increasing.  The 
number  of  trained  instructors  is  estimated  at  600.  The 
serious  attempt  to  standardize  such  departments  has  at 
least  begun.  The  Commission  of  the  Religious  Education 
Association  which  has  had  this  task  in  hand  made  their 
first  report  in  1916.  At  that  time  but  31  departments  had 
been  discovered  throughout  the  country  entitled  to  be  in 
Class  “A,”  made  up  of  those  whose  quality  of  instruction 
was  considered  as  ranking  with  that  of  the  departments 
of  Literature  and  History.  The  requirements  for  a  Class 
“A”  department  were  very  modest  indeed.  The  college 
should  have  at  least  one  well-trained  instructor  who  was 

'The  Bible  teachers  have  a  national  association  with  a  mid- 
western  branch  and  the  guild  consciousness  is  being  developed 
among  them. 


244  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


giving  his  entire  time  to  teaching.  The  president  of  the 
college,  the  pastor,  the  Y.M.C.A.  or  Y.W.C.A.  secre¬ 
tary,  could  not  be  the  head  of  this  department,  nor  the 
chaplain  unless  he  were  of  professorial  rank.  Fundamental 
courses  of  but  one  hour  per  week  were  eliminated  from 
consideration.  The  department  was  required  to  offer 
at  least  18  semester  hours  of  work.  Reasonable  library 
equipment  was  demanded  and  an  annual  budget  sufficient 
to  keep  the  department  on  a  parity  with  the  other  depart¬ 
ments  of  the  institution.  Measured  by  these  standards,  the 
Class  “A”  departments  had  increased  from  31  in  1916  to 
88  in  1921.  Other  classes  of  departments  designated  as 
“B,”  “C”  and  “D”  have  been  enumerated  to  the  total  of 
some  220,  and  there  is  an  encouraging  movement  of  these 
departments  from  year  to  year  to  the  higher  classes. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  are  numerous  motives 
for  the  extension  of  this  work.  They  range  all  the  way 
from  an  effort  at  scientific  interpretation  of  Biblical  litera- 
ature  and  history  to  the  defense  and  buttressing  of  the 
particular  brand  of  faith  to  which  the  people  who  support 
the  college  subscribe.  Sometimes  the  purpose  is  to  pre¬ 
pare  students  for  the  theological  seminary ;  sometimes  the 
devotional  purpose  is  paramount  in  the  mind  of  the  teacher. 
The  usual  purpose,  there  is  evidence  to  believe,  is  the 
Christian  motivation  of  the  lives  of  the  students.  The 
teaching  manifestly  may  be  valued  as  good,  bad,  and  in¬ 
different,  depending  not  only  on  the  dominating  motive, 
but  upon  the  scholarship  and  skill  of  the  teacher.  It 
should  be  said  that  among  these  teachers  is  an  increasing 
number  of  Biblical  scholars  and  educators  of  the  first  rank. 

As  a  rule,  however,  the  Biblical  department  does  not 
now  rank  among  the  leading  departments  either  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  number  of  courses  offered  or  the  num¬ 
ber  of  students  enrolled.  In  some  of  the  large  women’s 
colleges  Biblical  studies  do  take  a  prominent  place.  In  the 
Disciples’  colleges  also,  to  take  an  extreme  case,  Biblical 
work  takes  a  commanding  place  in  the  curriculum.  There 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  245 

is  a  well-marked  tendency  among  them,  as  they  attain 
higher  educational  standards,  to  reduce  the  amount  of 
Biblical  work  offered.  This  is  not  a  reflection  on  the  better 
colleges  but  an  indication  that  much  of  the  work  offered  in 
the  weaker  schools  is  not  of  college  grade.  Speaking  gen¬ 
erally  for  all  the  detached  colleges  of  the  country,  Biblical 
work  of  high  grade  is  gaining  ground.  The  statement  is 
entirely  justified  not  only  that  English  language  and 
literature  is  thoroughly  established  as  the  master  subject 
of  the  American  college  of  liberal  arts,  but  that  the 
English  Bible  is  more  and  more  coming  to  be  recognized 
in  our  colleges  as  the  crown  of  English  literature. 

The  complaint  is  sometimes  made  that  the  modern  col¬ 
lege  teacher  of  the  Bible  “upsets”  his  students;  that  his 
teaching  tends  to  unsettle  the  faith  of  their  childhood. 
One  of  the  most  experienced  and  most  successful  Bible 
teachers  of  our  country,  Professor  Irving  F.  Wood  of 
Smith  College,  answers  this  complaint  by  the  remark. 
“That  depends  very  largely  on  what  the  faith  of  their 
childhood  was,”  and  he  gives  the  assurance  that  now  “less 
and  less  often  is  the  teacher  of  the  Bible  obliged  to  see  the 
pitiful  sight  of  the  slow  rebuilding  of  a  wrecked  childhood 
faith.” 8  9 

Along  with  the  development  of  the  departments  of  Bible 
is  going  a  new  attention  to  the  interrelation  of  the  Bible 
courses  with  those  in  ancient  languages,  philosophy,  ethics, 
psychology,  education,  economics,  the  social  sciences,  and 
history.  This  interrelation  is  scarcely  less  important  than 
the  Bible  teaching  itself. 

Several  significant  experiments  are  now  being  made  by 
well-known  institutions  of  the  independent  type  to  help 
the  student  in  coordinating  his  otherwise  fragmentary 
knowledge,  and  in  some  of  these  attention  is  given  to 
religious  values.  At  Columbia  all  freshmen  are  required 

8  “Biblical  Teaching  in  School  and  College,”  Sneath’s  “Modern 

Christian  Callings,”  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 


246  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

to  take  a  course  in  contemporary  civilization,  a  part  of 
which  consists  in  a  setting  forth  of  the  fundamentals  of 
religious  faith  and  practice.  At  Harvard  all  candidates 
for  the  A.B.  degree  who  have  majored  in  English  litera¬ 
ture,  modern  languages  or  the  classics  have  set  for  them 
a  three-hour  examination  in  the  Bible,  which  is  a  part  of 
the  general  examination  now  required  at  that  institution  of 
most  of  its  seniors. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  as  the  standards  of  Biblical 
instructors  and  instruction  advance,  Biblical  work  gains  in 
educational  prestige.  For  some  years  a  number  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  colleges  and  universities  have  announced  certain  elec¬ 
tives  in  Bible  for  entrance  to  college.  These  announce¬ 
ments  have  usually  been  based  on  the  recommendations 
of  special  conferences  or  committees  made  up  of  educators. 
The  most  recent  recommendation  of  this  kind  and  the  one 
which  has  received  the  widest  recognition  is  the  prelim¬ 
inary  report  of  the  Commission  on  the  Definition  of  a  Unit 
of  Bible  Study  for  Secondary  Schools,  with  special  refer¬ 
ences  to  college  entrance.  This  Commission  was  appointed 
by  the  Council  of  Church  Boards  of  Education  at  the 
request  of  practically  all  of  the  national  agencies  and 
several  of  the  local  agencies  interested  in  religious  educa¬ 
tion.  Not  only  did  the  Commission  have  widely  repre¬ 
sentative  authority,  but  the  Commission  itself  was  widely 
representative  of  American  Biblical  scholarship  and  educa¬ 
tional  administration,  and  the  Definition  has  been  ap¬ 
proved,  directly  or  by  implication,  by  no  less  than  300  col¬ 
leges  and  universities.10  It  is  manifest  that  as  the  schools 
lay  more  secure  foundations  for  Biblical  culture,  the  col¬ 
leges  will  be  able  greatly  to  improve  the  effectiveness  of 
their  work. 


10  The  Definition  has  been  approved  unanimously  by  the  two 
leading  college  standardizing  agencies  of  the  country — the  Asso¬ 
ciation  of  Colleges  and  Secondary  Schools  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  the  North  Central  Association  of  Colleges  and  Sec¬ 
ondary  Schools. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  247 


3.  Religious  Education  in  the  College  Curriculum 

A  more  recent  development  is  the  multiplication  of 
courses  or  departments  of  Religious  Education.  This  work 
is  usually  being  carried  on  in  conjunction  with  that  in 
Biblical  literature  and  history,  or  with  that  of  the  De¬ 
partment  of  Education,  with  which  it  is  in  purpose  and 
method,  perhaps,  more  closely  related.  Since  no  steps  have 
been  taken  by  any  agency  as  yet  to  evaluate  this  growing 
movement,  it  is  not  possible  even  to  give  the  number  of 
such  departments  or  chairs.  There  are  certainly  several 
scores  of  them  and  they  enroll  in  the  aggregate  several 
thousand  students.  The  Board  of  Education  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  is  authority  for  the 
statement  that  there  is  not  a  single  college  in  that  denomi¬ 
nation  that  does  not  offer  a  course  in  religious  education, 
and  that  most  of  them  have  well-manned  departments. 

In  view  of  the  pioneer  nature  of  this  work  and  its  great 
importance,  a  Commission  representing  the  Religious  Edu¬ 
cation  Association,  the  Council  of  Church  Boards  of 
Education,  the  International  Sunday  School  Association,11 
and  the  Sunday  School  Council  of  Evangelical  Denomina¬ 
tions,  has  been  working  for  several  years  upon  the  defini¬ 
tion  of  an  undergraduate  major  in  religious  education. 
The  final  report  of  this  Commission  has  not  been  made, 
but  there  is  general  agreement  that  30  semester  hours  in 
this  department  should  be  outlined  as  a  minimum,  and  that 
the  required  courses  should  be: 

Bible .  6  semester  hours 

The  Christian  Religion  .  3 

Educational  Psychology .  3 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Religious 

Education  .  3 

Teaching  the  Christian  Religion,  with 
observation  and  practise  . 4 

11  Now  merged  with  the  Sunday  School  Council. 


248  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

A  complete  curriculum  would,  of  course,  provide  also 
for  courses  in  Church  history,  Christian  missions,  and 
other  kindred  subjects. 

A  significant  part  of  the  report  of  the  Commission, 
as  thus  far  made,  raises  the  question,  “Who  should  teach 
these  subjects  ?”  and  the  answer  indicates  the  trend  of  edu¬ 
cational  aspiration  in  this  field : 

“The  treatment  of  religious  education  should  not  be 
less  serious,  thorough,  and  technical  than  the  treatment 
that  'general’  education  receives.  In  both  fields  technically 
equipped  specialists  are  required  as  teachers.  A  tempta¬ 
tion  will  arise  to  entrust  some  or  all  of  the  subjects  that 
have  been  named  to  the  ‘handy  man’  of  the  faculty ;  or  to 
append  them  as  secondary  duties  to  the  schedules  of 
teachers  whose  training  and  first  interests  lie  elsewhere ; 
or  to  appoint  someone  as  teacher  on  the  ground  of  avail¬ 
ability  and  cheapness ;  or  to  group  existing  courses  that 
deal  with  the  Bible,  religion,  and  education,  and  call  them 
‘religious  education.’  Administrators  should  clearly  un¬ 
derstand  that  what  is  required  is  not  a  new  name  for  an 
old  thing,  nor  merely  new  permutations  and  combinations 
of  courses  and  students.  Our  recommendation  concerns 
a  new  branch  of  study  with  specific  aims  and  subject 
matter  of  its  own,  together  with  a  new  approach  to  certain 
older  subjects.  Effective  education  in  this  field  cannot 
begin  too  soon,  for  the  need  is  tragically  imperative ;  yet 
it  would  be  less  evil  to  wait  indefinitely  for  proper  con¬ 
ditions  of  income,  teaching  staff,  and  library,  than  to 
substitute  anything  whatever  for  high-grade  teaching.” 

This  general  survey  of  developments  now  taking  place 
in  the  colleges  is  full  of  hope,  but  it  represents  only  a 
beginning  in  meeting  the  responsibility  confronting  the 
Church.  The  colleges  founded  by  the  Church  and  drawing 
support  from  it  have  a  distinctive  function  that  the  tax- 
supported  State  university  does  not  have.  Their  purpose 
is  to  train  for  Christian  leadership.  Included  in  this 
general  task  are  three  clear  responsibilities :  ( i )  to  give 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLLEGE  249 

to  all  the  students  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 
Christian  religion;  (2)  to  provide  the  special  training 
needed  to  equip  many  men  to  serve  as  well-trained  lay 
workers  in  their  local  churches;  (3)  to  lay  the  best  pos¬ 
sible  foundation  for  the  smaller  group  who  are  to  enter 
the  ministry  or  other  forms  of  Christian  service  as  a 
profession. 

If  the  Christian  college  is  not  fulfilling  this  three-fold 
function  it  has  lost  its  raison  d'etre,  and  is  only  competing 
with  the  State  institutions  in  providing  a  secular  type  of 
education  which  the  State  institution  can  usually  better 
provide.  If  the  curriculum  of  the  Christian  college  is  not 
to  provide  positively  for  the  teaching  of  religion  its  spe¬ 
cial  crown  and  glory  is  gone.  A  general  “Christian  atmos¬ 
phere/’  fundamentally  important  as  it  is,  will  not  make 
up  for  this  lack.  Indeed,  the  spirit  and  atmosphere  of 
the  college  will  be  deeply  affected  by  the  emphasis  which 
is  given,  or  is  not  given,  to  religion  in  the  curriculum. 
For  what  is  taught  in  the  class-room  is  an  unmistakable 
indication  of  what  the  college  regards  as  of  real 
importance. 

The  Christian  college  will  not  be  fulfilling  its  mission 
until  religion  is  treated  as  one  of  the  most  important  fields 
of  knowledge  in  the  curriculum,  as  well  provided  for  as 
the  departments  of  science  or  history,  and  claiming  a  fair 
share  of  the  thought  and  attention  of  all  the  students. 
Indeed,  even  this  is  not  enough.  The  function  of  the 
Christian  college  ought  to  be  to  give  a  Christian  interpre¬ 
tation  of  all  truth.  The  teaching  of  biology,  psychology, 
economics,  history,  ethics,  philosophy,  and  literature  in  a 
Christian  college  must  be  related  vitally  and  organically 
to  the  Christian  conception  of  God  and  His  purpose  for 
the  world. 


CHAPTER  XI 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  THE  TAX- 
SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION 

The  tax-supported  institutions  it  is  necessary  to  treat, 
in  part  at  least,  as  a  separate  class,  because  of  certain 
legal  disqualifications,  real  or  hypothetical,  growing  out  of 
the  principle  of  the  separation  of  Church  and  State.1 

State  universities  are  usually  understood  to  be  legally 
disqualified  from  teaching  religion.  The  more  accurate 
statement  would  be  that  they  are  disqualified  from  pro¬ 
moting  sectarianism.  There  is  a  popular  misconception 
that  such  institutions  are  to  be  described  as  “godless.” 
There  have  been  numerous  and  conflicting  decisions  and 
opinions  on  the  part  of  the  legal  authorities,  such  as  that 
the  Bible  is  a  sectarian  book  or  that  a  teacher  of  religion 
will  necessarily  have  a  sectarian  bias,  so  that  the  total 
effect  has  been  to  make  the  official  teaching  of  religion  by 
State  universities  a  difficult,  if  not  a  dangerous,  matter. 

Not  all  of  the  impotence  of  the  State  and  municipal 
institutions  in  matters  religious  is  due  to  the  provisions  of 
the  law,  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  or  the  opinions  of  the 
legal  and  educational  authorities.  The  Churches  must 
bear  their  share  of  the  blame  for  a  situation  confessedly 
by  no  means  ideal.  In  the  succinct  words  of  President 
Vinson  of  the  University  of  Texas :  “The  separatist  ten¬ 
dencies  of  our  Protestantism  are  an  added  difficulty  in  the 
interpretation  and  practical  application  of  a  law  which 


1  In  a  more  comprehensive  study  of  higher  education  it  would 
be  important  to  give  a  separate  treatment  also  to  the  independent 
institution — like  Yale,  Harvard,  or  Columbia — which  is  under  the 
control  of  neither  Church  nor  State, 

250 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION 


25  i 

was  never  designed  as  a  means  of  placing  education  and 
religion  under  irreconcilable  categories  and  of  making  our 
culture  a  purely  intellectual  process.” 

i.  The  Interest  of  State  Universities  in  Religion 

In  considering  the  influences  affecting  the  work  of 
Christian  education  in  these  institutions  it  is  important  to 
understand  clearly  the  favorable  attitude  of  most  of  the 
executive  officers.  Over  and  over  again  the  presidents  of 
Michigan,  Ohio  State,  Ohio  University,  Miami,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Kentucky,  Iowa,  Arkansas,  California,  Kansas, 
Kansas  State,  Louisiana,  Maine,  Maryland,  Minnesota, 
Mississippi,  Cornell,  Penn  State,  South  Carolina,  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Pennsylvania,  Missouri,  Montana  State  College, 
Oregon  Agricultural  College,  Idaho,  Utah,  Texas,  Wash¬ 
ington,  and  Wisconsin,  and  no  doubt  others,  have  publicly 
and  privately  emphasized  the  recognition  of  religion  as  an 
essential  in  educational  effort.  These  executives  are  posi¬ 
tive  forces  in  developing  the  religious  consciousness  and 
instilling  religious  sanctions.  President  Kinley  of  the 
University  of  Illinois  has  recently  voiced  this  favorable 
attitude  in  the  declaration,  “There  is  no  complete  educa¬ 
tion  without  religion.”  If  the  attitude  of  the  presidents 
generally  were  otherwise,  the  problems  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation  in  state  institutions  would  be  difficult  indeed. 

This  interest  of  the  executives  in  the  religious  phase  of 
education  is  confirmed  by  the  type  of  men  selected  for 
faculty  positions.  Out  of  2,832  faculty  members  in  33 
State  universities  recently  reporting  on  their  religious 
affiliations,  70  per  cent,  expressed  denominational  prefer¬ 
ence  (mostly  Protestant)  and  of  the  30  per  cent,  express¬ 
ing  no  denominational  preference,  many  are  known  to  be 
religiously  inclined.  It  is  true  that  the  percentage  showing 
no  preference  is  twice  as  great  as  among  the  students.  It 
is  even  true  that  many  college  and  university  professors, 
within  and  without  the  State  institutions,  seem  to  show 


252  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

little  but  contempt  for  the  Church.  At  the  same  time, 
many  of  the  Churches  in  the  college  and  university  com¬ 
munities  are  supported  almost  entirely  by  the  professors. 
They  are  Church  officials,  teach  Bible  classes,  and  attend 
Church  services  quite  as  regularly  as  any  other  class  of 
men  in  the  community.  In  a  majority  of  the  State  col¬ 
leges  and  universities  a  greater  or  less  amount  of  subject 
matter  for  religious  education  is  found  in  the  various  de¬ 
partmental  announcements  and  is  made  dynamic  by  Chris¬ 
tian  professors.  In  some  of  them  an  undercurrent  of  re¬ 
ligious  conviction  is  a  characteristic  phase  of  the  corporate 
character.  In  many  instances  faculty  members  in  State 
institutions  are  doing  much  the  same  type  of  religious  work 
as  that  done  by  similar  men  in  the  denominational  colleges ; 
indeed,  in  its  freedom  from  sectarian  bias  it  is  often  com¬ 
parable  with  the  educational  work  on  the  foreign  field. 

Not  a  few  State  universities  go  further  than  might  be 
expected  in  distinctively  encouraging  the  religious  life. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  the  Southern  State  universities, 
which  employ  and  pay  the  salaries,  in  full  or  in  part,  of 
secretaries  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Y.W.C.A.  At  the 
University  of  Oklahoma,  the  Kansas  State  Agricultural 
College,  and  Pennsylvania  State  College  courses  in  re¬ 
ligious  education  have  recently  been  established  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  Department  of  Education.  The  Uni¬ 
versity  of  South  Carolina  has  compulsory  Church  and 
chapel  attendance,  and  a  chair  of  English  Bible  covering 
four  years. 

The  attitude  of  the  administration  of  many  State  univer¬ 
sities  is  indicated  by  such  catalogue  announcements  as 
follow,  which  are  selected  almost  at  random : 

“Morning  services  are  held  daily,  except  Sunday,  in  the 
Main  Building,  with  addresses  by  clergymen,  resident  and 
visiting,  and  by  members  of  the  faculty. 

“The  Association  of  Religious  Teachers,  an  organization 
in  which  the  various  religious  bodies  cooperate,  offers  a 
number  of  courses  to  the  students  of  the  university.  This 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  253 


work,  carried  on  with  good  sense,  vigor,  and  friendly  co¬ 
operation,  supplies  well  the  religious  element  in  education 
that  the  American  State  university  by  reason  of  its  con¬ 
nection  with  the  State  cannot  itself  attempt. 

“The  university,  although  it  has  no  official  connection 
with  any  particular  denominational  body,  endeavors  to 
develop  an  earnest  appreciation  of  ethical  and  social  obliga¬ 
tions,  and  to  encourage  participation  in  religious  activities. 

“While  the  University  cannot  exercise  any  official  super¬ 
vision  over  the  religious  life  and  education  of  the  students, 
it  does,  however,  offer  in  the  departments  of  history, 
philosophy,  and  literature,  many  courses  in  which  the 
principles  of  morals  and  religion  are  discussed  and  the  life 
teachings  of  the  great  religious  teachers  are  considered  and 
the  history  of  great  religious  and  ethical  movements  is 
traced. 

“The  various  religious  agencies  found  within  the  uni¬ 
versity  community  supplement  in  an  unofficial  way  the 
work  of  the  university  in  fulfilling  the  aim  of  all  true 
education  to  prepare  students  for  leadership  in  the  affairs 
of  human  life. 

“Religious  exercises,  consisting  of  Scripture  readings, 
singing,  and  prayer,  are  held  frequently  in  the  university 
assembly.  At  these  exercises  a  special  lecture  or  address 
is  given  by  some  noted  speaker.  Although  attendance  is 
voluntary,  the  purpose  of  cultivating  the  moral,  religious, 
and  social  spirit  of  the  university  is  heartily  recognized; ” 

In  certain  institutions,  like  the  University  of  Michigan, 
more  than  30  courses  are  offered  in  the  university  classes 
in  the  history,  literature,  and  application  of  religion.  In 
most  of  the  State  universities,  all-university  religious  con¬ 
vocations  are  held  at  different  times  during  the  year.  To 
address  these  great  gatherings  religious  and  social  leaders 
of  national  and  international  distinction  are  secured.  While 
in  many  instances  these  convocations  are  financed  by  the 
religious  forces  about  the  campus,  in  others  the  university 
itself  carries  a  substantial  proportion  of  the  expenses. 
Numerous  tax-supported  institutions  have  also  led  in  hold¬ 
ing  State-wide  conferences  of  rural  and  other  Church 
workers,  and  have  thereby  contributed  no  small  part  in 


254  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

stimulating  the  religious  life  within  their  own  communities 
and  throughout  the  State. 

What  may  be  called  the  fundamentally  religious  side  of 
the  State  university’s  task  was  expressed  at  a  recent  annual 
meeting  of  the  National  Association  of  State  Universities 
by  President  Birge  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  in 
eloquent  words: 

“Of  old,  democracy  was  hindered  of  its  fruits  and 
cheated  of  its  life  by  social  rigidity,  and  against  this  situ¬ 
ation  the  university  protested.  Today  democracy  is  in 
danger  of  loss  as  the  sense  of  common  interests  and  a 
common  life  becomes  weakened.  At  such  a  time  can  the 
university  render  a  higher  service  to  democracy  than  to 
preserve  and  strengthen  those  spiritual  ideals  common  to 
us  and  to  our  fathers,  shared  by  our  nation  with  sister 
nations  all  over  the  world,  honored  and  revered  through¬ 
out  all  ages,  and  a  part  of  our  common  inheritance  from 
the  past?” 

The  university  authorities  all  recognize,  however,  that 
the  chief  work  of  religious  education  must  be  done  by  the 
churches,  and  that  to  be  most  effective  it  should  be  carried 
on  ordinarily  by  cooperative  effort.  Within  the  past  decade 
much  progress  has  been  made  in  this  cooperative  work,  as 
the  following  sketch  will  show. 


2.  Types  of  Religious  Work  in  State  Institutions  2 

In  some  State  institutions,  as  well  as  some  municipal 
and  independent  universities,  there  are  to  be  found  no  paid 
workers  devoting  their  entire  time  to  the  religious  life  of 
the  students.  In  the  case  of  the  municipal  institutions, 
approximately  90  per  cent,  of  the  students  are  from 
the  city  in  which  the  institution  is  located.  The  local 
Churches  would  seem  to  have  here  both  a  serious  re- 


3  For  a  fuller  discussion,  see  “Christian  Education,”  Vol.  IV, 
No.  9,  June,  1921.  Published  by  the  Council  of  Church  Boards 
of  Education,  111  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  255 

sponsibility  and  a  remarkable  opportunity  for  cooperative 
work. 

Some  form  of  religious  education  is  operative  in  no 
fewer  than  83  tax-supported  institutions,  although  the 
work  could  not  be  considered  adequate  in  any  of  them. 
It  is  not  possible  within  the  space  allotted  for  this  discus¬ 
sion  to  indicate  all  the  different  types  of  effort.  Many  of 
these — to  be  true  to  the  facts,  it  must  be  admitted  most  of 
them — are  in  the  experimental  stage.  But  they  are  carried 
on  by  devoted  and  courageous  men  and  women  and  they 
are  meeting  with  success.  Especially  important  is  it  to 
study  the  efforts  to  secure  a  unified  program,  for,  as 
already  suggested,  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  the 
development  of  religious  education  in  the  tax-supported 
institution  is  a  sectarian  emphasis.  Typical  experiments 
can  at  least  be  pointed  out. 

A.  The  Approach  Through  Student  Organizations 

1.  The  Christian  Associations .3 — There  can  be  no 
adequate  exposition  of  the  religious  education  of  college 
and  university  students  without  fuller  discussion  than  is 
here  possible  of  the  work  of  the  Student  Departments  of 
the  Young  Men’s  and  the  Young  Women’s  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciations,  and  such  related  agencies  as  the  Student  Volun¬ 
teer  Movement  for  Foreign  Missions.  These  agencies  are 
operating  in  some  form  in  most  of  the  institutions  of 
higher  learning  in  the  country,  including  normal  schools 
and  professional  schools  of  college  rank. 

In  some  fields  the  Young  Men’s  Associations  and  the 
Young  Women’s  Associations,  with  the  affiliated  organiza¬ 
tions,  are  working  practically  alone  so  far  as  any  national 
Christian  agencies  are  concerned.  This  is  true  in  so  im¬ 
portant  an  institution  as  the  University  of  Minnesota.  In 
almost  all  institutions  the  Associations  were  the  first 

3  The  work  here  described  refers,  of  course,  to  the  denomina¬ 
tional  and  independent  institutions  as  well  as  to  those  that  are 
tax  supported. 


256  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

agencies  to  enter  these  fields  and  the  Churches  owe  them  a 
great  debt  of  gratitude. 

The  voluntary  study  work  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the 
Y.W.C.A.  consists  chiefly  of  Bible  study  classes,  world 
fellowship  or  mission  study  classes,  and  discussion 
groups  on  Christian  fundamentals — all  of  which  are  too 
well  known  and  appreciated  to  require  special  comment. 
Both  Associations  conduct  social  study  classes,  which  are 
continued  during  the  summer  through  such  groups  as  the 
social  service  group  in  New  York  City,  and  Christian 
industrial  research  groups  in  different  cities.  The 
Y.W.C.A.  organizes  student-industrial  groups,  which  in¬ 
clude  study  classes  and  mutual  undertakings  of  students 
and  industrial  women,  as  well  as  study  groups  of  students 
in  three  large  cities.  The  Y.M.C.A.  promotes  also  nor¬ 
mal  training  classes  for  all  the  courses  of  study  recom¬ 
mended.  The  Associations  are  rendering  a  further  valu¬ 
able  educational  service  in  the  production  of  popular  and 
useful  text-books,  in  conducting  public  religious  meetings 
and  conferences,  and  in  deputation  work. 

For  many  years  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Y.W.C.A. 
have  both  made  a  very  large  contribution  to  the  religious 
life  of  student  groups  throughout  the  nation  through  the 
summer  Student  Conferences,  now  numbering  seven  for 
men  and  ten  for  women,  and  enrolling  thousands  of 
picked  student  religious  leaders.  Within  the  past  few 
years  a  plan  has  been  put  into  operation  in  several  of  the 
conferences,  both  men’s  and  women’s,  for  relating  the 
Churches  more  directly  to  the  summer  conferences.  This 
plan  provides  for  a  continuous  and  systematic  representa¬ 
tion  of  the  Boards  of  the  various  Churches,  and  its  suc¬ 
cess  registers  a  most  satisfactory  effort  at  cooperation  be¬ 
tween  the  Churches  and  the  Associations.  While  the  con¬ 
ferences  remain,  as  formerly,  Association  conferences 
from  the  legal  standpoint,  in  practice  they  approximate 
Christian  student  conferences  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Associations  and  the  Churches. 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  257 

2.  Affiliated  Organisations. — The  Student  Volunteer 
Movement,  composed  of  students  expecting  to  become  for¬ 
eign  missionaries,  undertakes  to  develop  among  college  and 
university  students  a  study  of  foreign  missions  and  a 
better  understanding  of  missionary  problems  and  to  secure 
new  recruits  for  missionary  service.  More  than  9,000 
members  of  the  Movement  have  actually  sailed  for  as¬ 
signed  work  in  foreign  fields  during  the  past  quarter  of 
a  century.  The  Committee  on  Missionary  Preparation, 
working  under  the  authority  of  the  Foreign  Missions 
Conference,  makes  two  significant  contributions  to  mis¬ 
sionary  training,  first,  through  advising  undergraduates 
who  are  studying  for  missionary  service  as  to  the  best 
courses  to  pursue;  secondly,  by  giving  guidance  to  mis¬ 
sionaries  on  furlough  in  selecting  the  institutions  and  the 
lines  of  study  which  will  best  equip  them  for  the  peculiar 
needs  which  their  experience  on  the  foreign  field  has  made 
apparent. 

Both  Associations  have  Committees  on  Friendly  Rela¬ 
tions  Among  Foreign  Students  which  work  in  close  co¬ 
operation.  The  Young  Women’s  Committee  deals 
directly  with  2,000  women  students  from  other  lands  who 
are  enrolled  in  higher  institutions  of  learning.  The  field 
of  the  Young  Men’s  Committee  is  the  8,000  or  more 
foreign  young  men  who  have  come  to  our  American 
colleges  and  universities.  A  staff  of  American  and  of 
foreign  secretaries  is  maintained  who  travel  extensively 
among  the  universities  in  the  interest  of  foreign  students, 
promoting  clubs,  Bible  classes,  discussion  groups,  Chris¬ 
tian  hospitality,  and  summer  conferences.  A  few  of  the 
larger  cities  or  universities  have  special  secretaries  giving 
all  of  their  time  to  foreign  students.  The  general  aims 
of  the  work  are,  first,  the  development  of  understanding 
and  good-will  between  foreign  students  and  the  American 
public;  and,  second,  the  development  of  the  student 
Christian  program.  Both  of  these  objects  take  on  urgent 
importance  in  view  of  the  careers  to  which  many  of  these 


258  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

students  will  return.  The  effort  is  made  to  reveal  to 
these  transient  students  the  best  products  of  our  civiliza¬ 
tion,  while  enabling  them  to  understand  that  the  unlovely 
things  represent  the  areas  unconquered  by  Christianity. 

The  Student  Fellowship  for  Christian  Life  Service, 
recently  organized,  has  as  its  fundamental  purpose  “to 
unite  those  students  committed  to  Christian  life  service 
in  prayer,  study,  and  vigorous  effort  to  make  America 
Christian  for  the  friendly  service  of  the  world.”  Any 
student  who  is  enlisted  for  full-time  Christian  service, 
even  though  he  does  not  yet  know  whether  he  will  serve 
at  home  or  abroad,  may  become  a  member.  A  representa¬ 
tive  of  the  Fellowship  is  expected  to  be  present  at  each 
Student  Conference. 

B.  The  Pastoral  Approach 

i.  The  University  Pastor . — Approximately  200  uni¬ 
versity  pastors  are  now  employed  by  the  Churches  on  full 
or  part  time.  Generally  they  are  related  closely  to  one  or 
more  of  the  Churches  in  the  adjacent  community  and 
seek  especially  to  keep  the  students  in  vital  contact  with 
the  organized  religious  life  of  the  Church.  The  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  university  pastor  marks  a  distinct  advance  in 
the  sense  of  responsibility  of  the  Churches  for  the  life  of 
the  students.  A  Conference  of  Church  Workers  in  Uni¬ 
versities  has  been  formed  for  mutual  helpfulness. 

At  the  University  of  Illinois  the  Baptist  students  have 
been  organized  into  a  regular  Church,  the  direction  of 
which  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  students.  The  only 
responsibilities  assumed  by  the  professors  are  those  of 
teaching  in  the  classes  of  the  Bible  School.  Students 
bring  their  letters  from  their  home  Churches  and  take 
membership  in  this  Church  as  they  would  in  any  other 
Church  of  the  community,  and  are  dismissed  by  letter  at 
the  close  of  their  student  career.  The  Church  has  a 
splendid  building  and  a  regular  pastor  whose  salary  is 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  259 

paid  by  the  Baptist  Board  of  Education  and  the  Illinois 
Baptist  State  Convention.  By  this  method  of  organiza¬ 
tion  the  students  are  receiving  a  thorough  training  in  all 
the  responsibilities  of  Church  management. 

In  institutions  that  do  not  have  sufficient  students  to 
warrant  a  university  pastor  there  is  now  an  increasing 
number  of  denominational  clubs  or  associations.  The 
student  clubs  formed  among  the  Episcopal  and  the  Luth¬ 
eran  students  are  exceptionally  successful.  They  are 
engaged  in  strengthening  Church  ties  and  providing  train¬ 
ing  in  some  forms  of  Church  work.  Such  agencies,  as 
well  as  the  work  of  the  university  pastor,  emphasize  the 
fact  that  the  most  healthy  religious  life  for  students  is 
ordinarily  that  which  centers  around  the  activities  of  a 
normal  Church. 

2.  The  Inter  church  University  Pastor. — In  a  number 
of  smaller  fields  interchurch  pastors  are  employed.  At 
Ohio  University  four  denominations  join  in  supporting 
a  university  pastor  who  acts  as  associate  pastor  to  all  of 
the  Churches  cooperating  in  the  plan.  He  also  directs 
the  work  of  the  Christian  Association.  For  such  an 
arrangement  a  definite  plan  has  been  agreed  upon  which 
provides  for  each  Church  an  official  board  and  a  com¬ 
mittee  on  Student  Relations  and  a  Student  Council.  For 
the  broader  cooperative  effort  there  is  an  interchurch 
committee,  composed  of  one  man  and  one  woman  from 
each  Church,  which  serves  in  an  advisory  and  executive 
capacity  for  the  religious  activities  of  the  entire  university. 

At  the  Michigan  Agricultural  College  four  denomina¬ 
tions  unitedly  support  a  Church  worker  who  acts  under 
a  plan  of  closest  affiliation  with  the  pastor  of  the  local 
community  Church.  The  Church  work  here  is  very  suc¬ 
cessful  and  much  overtaxes  the  available  headquarters. 
Arrangements  are  being  made  for  the  calling  of  a 
women’s  worker  who  will  be  closely  associated  with  the 
interdenominational  university  pastor  and  with  the  local 
community  Church.  Numerous  other  plans  are  in  oper- 


260  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

ation  similar  to  those  at  Ohio  University  and  Michigan 
Agricultural  College,  and  the  number  of  such  arrange¬ 
ments  will  undoubtedly  be  greatly  multiplied. 

3.  Unified  Organization  of  Paid  Church  Workers. — 
Another  notable  experiment  is  the  interdenominational 
organization  of  Church  workers  such  as  is  found  in  the 
united  Christian  work  at  Cornell  University.  It  has  a 
coordinating  executive  who  has  about  him  a  staff  of  sev¬ 
eral  denominational  representatives,  each  of  whom  is  a 
specialist  in  some  particular  field — such  as  Bible  study, 
missionary  education,  or  pastoral  contacts.  There  is  a 
unified  salary  budget,  to  which  contributions  are  made 
both  from  local  sources  and  from  the  national  boards. 
The  approach  to  the  students,  while  thus  effectively 
divided  into  its  functional  phases,  includes  also  denom¬ 
inational  care. 

4.  Unified  Organization  of  Mens  and  Women's 
Work  and  of  Church  and  Association  Workers. — At  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  there  is  an  organization  simi¬ 
lar  to  the  one  described  at  Cornell,  except  that  it  includes 
the  women’s  work  as  well  as  the  men’s.  Secretaries  for 
specialized  work  as  well  as  denominational  workers  are 
included  in  one  single  incorporated  organization,  known 
as  the  Christian  Association  of  the  University  of  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  the  men’s  department  of  which  is  affiliated  with 
the  Student  Y.M.C.A.  The  university  pastors  are 
rated  also  as  Association  secretaries.  There  is  a  unified 
budget  which  is  distributed  between  the  different  depart¬ 
ments  of  the  Association’s  work,  with  a  central  treasury 
and  centralized  financial  responsibility.  Similar  plans 
with  slight  modifications  are  operating  elsewhere,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  in  the  University  of  Michigan. 

5.  Partially  Coordinated  Work  of  Seminaries  and 
Church  and  Association  Workers. — Another  very  prom¬ 
ising  type  of  development  is  found  at  Berkeley,  the  seat 
of  the  University  of  California.  Within  the  university 
community  are  three  theological  seminaries :  the  Pacific 


1 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  261 


School  of  Religion  “for  students  of  all  denominations”; 
the  Berkeley  Baptist  Divinity  School;  and  the  Pacific 
Unitarian  School  for  Ministers.  In  addition  to  these, 
the  San  Francisco  Theological  Seminary  (Presbyterian) 
has  an  extension  department  at  Berkeley  in  the  West¬ 
minster  School  for  Christian  Social  Service,  presided  over 
by  the  Presbyterian  university  pastor. 

There  are  11  churches  located  near  the  campus,  and 
well-equipped  Y.M.C.A.  and  Y.W.C.A.,  with  all  the 
usual  lines  of  activity.  In  cooperation  with  these  agencies 
the  Episcopal  Church  is  establishing  a  university  pastor, 
who  will  represent  the  Church  Divinity  School  of  the 
Pacific,  located  in  San  Francisco.  The  Baptist  and 
Methodists  also  have  student  pastors.  These  Christian 
forces  usually  work  in  informal  but  in  very  real  co¬ 
operation.  There  is  an  extensive  interchange  of  courses 
and  of  library  facilities  among  the  seminaries.  They 
combine  to  procure  special  lecturers.  Students  in  all  these 
Church  schools  may  register  also  in  the  university  (al¬ 
though  credit  is  not  granted  automatically  by  the  uni¬ 
versity  for  work  done  in  the  seminaries).  Credentials 
of  students  from  seminaries  may  be  offered  through  the 
Board  of  Admissions  for  recognition  by  the  university. 
The  head  of  the  Department  of  Education  in  the  uni¬ 
versity  is  a  well-known  expert  in  religious  education, 
and  very  much  interested  in  the  promotion  of  Christian 
culture,  as  are  the  president  of  the  university  and  many 
of  the  leading  professors,  although  there  is  no  formal 
connection  between  any  of  these  agencies  and  the  uni¬ 
versity  itself. 

C.  The  Educational  Approach 
1.  Foundations  at  Universities 

At  a  number  of  institutions  educational  foundations 
have  been  established  by  the  Churches,  providing  regular 
instruction  in  religion,  generally  with  credit  allowed  by 


262  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  university.  The  Methodists  have  the  Wesley  Foun¬ 
dations,  the  Presbyterians  the  Westminster  Foundations, 
the  Baptists  the  Francis  Wayland  Foundations,  and  the 
Disciples  no  fewer  than  nine  agencies  usually  known  as 
the  Bible  Colleges  or  Chairs.  The  Wesley  Foundations 
at  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  North  Dakota,  and  the  Dis¬ 
ciples’  Bible  College  at  Missouri,  School  of  Religion  at 
Indiana,  and  Bible  Chairs  at  Kansas  and  Texas  Uni¬ 
versities,  have  attained  a  considerable  degree  of  success 
in  their  effort  to  approach  the  university  membership 
from  the  educational  as  well  as  the  pastoral  angle.  The 
instruction  consists  of  such  courses  as  New  Testament 
History,  Old  Testament  History,  History  of  Religion, 
The  Bible — Its  Ideals  and  Institutions,  Biblical  Literature, 
Social  Religion,  Religious  Education,  Science  and  Re¬ 
ligion,  the  Teachings  of  Jesus,  and  other  subjects  in  the 
general  field  of  religion. 

Statements  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  press 
indicate  that  twice  as  many  missionaries  are  now  going 
to  the  field  in  one  year  from  the  institutions  in  which 
Wesley  Foundations  exist  as  went  from  them  during 
thirty  years  before  the  Foundations  were  organized. 
That  is  to  say,  60  to  I  is  the  ratio  of  progress  already 
attained  in  this  particular  direction,  due  in  part  at  least 
to  this  youthful  and  very  slightly  subsidized  undertaking. 
The  University  Secretary  of  the  Disciples’  Board  of  Edu¬ 
cation  recently  reported  that  “the  assets  of  the  four  Bible 
Chairs  of  the  Disciples  at  the  Universities  of  Virginia, 
Michigan,  Kansas,  and  Texas,  and  the  four  institutions 
affiliated  with  the  Board  of  Education,  the  Bible  College 
of  Missouri,  California  School  of  Christianity,  Illinois 
Disciples  Foundation,  and  Indiana  School  of  Religion, 
and  the  independent  institution,  Eugene  Bible  University, 
aggregate  a  total  of  $2,000,000  accumulated  for  use  in 
these  nine  State  university  centers.” 

At  Ohio  State  and  at  Wisconsin  the  Baptists  have 
organized  Francis  Wayland  Foundations,  inaugurated  in 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  263 

accord  with  the  laws  of  their  respective  States  for  the 
holding  of  property.  The  trustees  of  the  Foundations 
are  representative  Baptists  from  the  Churches  in  the 
localities,  and  the  Baptist  State  Conventions  of  their 
respective  States  and  the  Northern  Baptist  Convention. 
At  Ohio  State  the  Foundation  is  now  engaged  in  securing 
a  half  block  of  property  directly  opposite  the  campus 
upon  which  are  to  be  erected  Church  buildings  and  dormi¬ 
tories  for  social  and  educational  purposes. 

Acting  upon  the  direction  of  the  Synod  of  Ohio,  the 
Presbyterian  Committee  on  the  Church’s  Work  in  Uni¬ 
versities  has  taken  out  incorporation  papers  for  the  West¬ 
minster  Foundation  of  Ohio.  The  corporation  exists  for 
the  purpose  of  holding,  managing,  buying  and  selling  all 
the  property,  both  real  and  personal,  of  the  Presbyterian 
Synod  of  Ohio  for  work  among  students. 

The  work  of  Wesley  College  at  the  University  of 
North  Dakota  may  be  cited  as  a  unique  experiment  in 
this  field.  This  institution  has  been  in  operation  for  more 
than  15  years  as  a  duly  recognized  institution  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  original  formal  agree¬ 
ment  between  the  president  of  the  University  and  the 
president  of  Wesley  College  as  to  its  scope  and  function 
has  not  been  modified  during  that  time  and  there  has 
never  been  friction  or  complaint  from  either  side.  Wesley 
College  has  its  own  plant  and  campus  and  the  disciplinary 
oversight  of  its  students  on  its  own  grounds.  The  build¬ 
ings  now  consist  of  a  dormitory  for  men  and  one  for 
women,  and  a  building  that  serves  as  an  administration 
and  music  hall.  It  has  a  faculty  of  15  and  fully  375 
students  elect  some  of  its  courses.  It  provides,  in  effect, 
a  department  of  religious  education  and  a  department 
of  music  for  the  University.  Students  may  take  degrees 
from  both  institutions.  The  college  offers,  in  the  Bible, 
two  hours  each  in  “The  Life  of  Jesus,”  “The  Teachings 
of  Jesus,”  “Social  Ideals  of  the  Prophets,”  and  “Social 
Teachings  of  Jesus  and  His  Followers”;  in  history,  two 


264  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

hours  each  in  “History  of  the  Hebrews”  and  “Outlines 
of  Church  History” ;  two  hours  each  in  “Principles  of 
Religious  Education,”  “Teaching  the  Christian  Religion,” 
“Organization  and  Administration  of  Religious  Educa¬ 
tion”;  in  the  church  and  world  agriculture,  two  hours 
each  in  “The  Church  and  Agriculture,”  and  “The  Church 
and  Agriculture  Abroad” ;  and  in  extension  service 
(without  credit)  a  “Rural  Pastors5  Clinic”  and  “Com¬ 
munity  Surveys. 55 

Probably  the  furthest  developed  of  any  of  the  educa¬ 
tional  approaches  of  the  Disciples  at  State  universities  is 
the  Bible  College  of  Missouri,  opened  in  1898,  adjacent 
to  the  campus  of  the  University  of  Missouri.  It  has  a 
good  college  building  and  an  endowment  for  three  pro¬ 
fessors.  For  the  past  few  years  the  Presbyterians  have 
been  supporting  a  Presbyterian  representative  in  the 
faculty,  and  the  institution  has  extended  an  invitation  to 
other  religious  bodies  to  join  in  its  faculty,  directorate, 
and  support.  Two  other  denominations  are  working  out 
plans  for  cooperation.  The  institution  has  confined  itself 
almost  entirely  to  the  work  of  Biblical  and  religious 
teaching.  It  has  a  credit  relation  with  the  university. 
Its  enrolment  has  often  gone  beyond  200  per  year.  It 
includes  in  its  classes  a  number  of  students  preparing  for 
the  ministry  and  mission  field,  and  gives  them  what  might 
be  called  a  pre-seminary  course.  The  school  has  defi¬ 
nitely  followed  the  program  of  attempting  to  combine  the 
ofifering  of  undergraduate  courses  to  regular  university 
students,  and  at  the  same  time  to  meet  the  needs  of 
ministerial  and  missionary  students.  Its  professors  have 
rendered  much  service  as  religious  counselors  to  the  uni¬ 
versity  students,  as  teachers  of  voluntary  classes  and 
participants  in  the  regular  work  of  the  local  churches. 

2.  The  Cooperating  School  of  Religion 

The  Cooperating  School  of  Religion,  maintained  by  a 
group  of  denominations  jointly,  is  still  more  of  an  ideal 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  265 

than  a  fact,  although  nine  cooperative  schools  are  now 
being  developed  in  close  relation  to  the  State  Universities 
of  Texas,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Michigan,  and  Ohio.  Thus  far  the  courses  have 
been  offered  simply  for  undergraduates.  In  five  of  these 
schools  of  religion,  between  6  and  40  semester  hours  are 
already  recognized  by  the  State  University  as  a  basis  for 
credit  towards  graduation. 

At  the  University  of  Texas  six  men,  well  equipped  for 
Biblical  instruction,  have  organized  an  Association  of 
Religious  Teachers  for  credits  under  specific  rules  laid 
down  by  the  University  authorities,  for  the  purpose  of 
furnishing  some  systematic  Biblical  and  religious  instruc¬ 
tion  to  the  students. 

There  is  an  increasing  conviction  that  the  problem  of 
religious  education  in  universities  will  not  adequately  be 
met  until  the  denominations  unite  in  providing  a  school 
which  shall  rank  in  educational  efficiency  and  prestige 
with  the  Schools  of  Education,  Medicine,  Law,  and 
Engineering,  and  shall  be  the  center  for  all  the  formal 
and  academic,  as  well  as  the  informal  and  personal,  re¬ 
ligious  interests  and  activities  of  the  university.  After 
many  years  of  administrative  experience,  the  late  Presi¬ 
dent  Charles  R.  Van  Hise  observed :  “I  am  unhesitatingly 
of  the  opinion  that  the  movement  for  the  School  of 
Religion  under  the  combined  auspices  of  the  various 
churches  is  far  more  important  for  the  State  of  Wis¬ 
consin,  the  university,  and  the  student  body,  than  indi¬ 
vidual  chapels  or  additional  dormitory  space.  ...  A 
School  of  Religion  established  by  the  cooperation  of  the 
various  denominations  would  meet  the  needs  for  instruc¬ 
tion  along  religious  lines  for  all  students  who  are  inter¬ 
ested  in  such  instruction: ”  The  same  view  has  been 
expressed  with  equal  emphasis  by  President  Van  Hise’s 
successor,  President  E.  A.  Birge,  who  recently  wrote :  “I 
believe  that  the  religious  bodies  ought  to  unite  in  giving 
courses,  if  they  are  to  be  credited  for  work  at  the  uni- 


266  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


versity.  The  single  denominations  are  hardly  likely  to 
have  funds  enough  to  secure  high-grade  men  and  there 
will  always  be  the  possibility  of  denominational  contro¬ 
versies  which  would  prejudice  the  general  situation.” 
The  opinion  here  expressed  by  these  seasoned  university 
executives  is  held  by  an  increasing  number  of  educational 
and  religious  leaders. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  there  is  the  disposition 
on  the  part  of  numerous  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  estab¬ 
lish  courses  in  connection  with  the  universities  under 
strictly  denominational  control.  During  the  post-war  period 
these  denominational  agencies  have  made  more  progress 
in  the  United  States  than  the  cooperative  ones.  This 
undoubtedly  retards  the  recognition  of  religious  work  by 
the  universities  and  raises  numerous  complicated  educa¬ 
tional  problems.  At  the  University  of  Toronto,  and 
particularly  at  McGill  University,  Montreal,  the  cooper¬ 
ative  work  of  the  theological  colleges  has  attained  most 
satisfactory  results.4  One  of  the  most  striking  results 
has  been  the  discovery  that  seven-eighths  of  the  courses 
offered  by  the  different  denominational  colleges  can  be 
offered  on  a  cooperative  basis  without  injustice  to  denom¬ 
inational  points  of  view.  Those  who  see  the  tremendous 
potentialities  of  the  quarter  of  a  million  choice  young 
men  and  women  in  our  state  and  municipal  universities 
and  colleges,  and  who  see  how  indispensable  is  a  united 
approach  to  any  adequate  solution  of  the  problem  of  their 
religious  education,  will  watch  eagerly  for  further  signs 
of  progress. 

From  this  brief  survey  it  will  be  noted  that  it  is  only 
the  informal  and  pastoral  functions  of  religious  education 
which  are  in  operation,  for  the  most  part,  at  present  in 
our  tax-supported  universities.  The  types  of  work  car¬ 
ried  on  in  connection  with  most  of  the  plans  outlined 
above  have  to  do  with  that  great  mass  of  extra-curriculum 

4  See  “Christian  Education,”  Vol.  V.,  No.  io,  July,  1922,  for 
fuller  exposition  of  the  Canadian  plan. 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  267 

work  summed  up  under  the  ambiguous  phrase  “student 
activities.”  Only  in  the  foundations  and  Bible  chairs  is 
formal  instruction  attempted  of  a  type  comparable  with 
that  done  in  other  university  fields. 

What  has  been  done  is  at  least  an  indication  of  the 
general  direction  in  which  we  must  move  in  providing  for 
a  program  of  religious  education  in  the  State  university. 
On  the  whole  the  tax-supported  institutions  must  be 
listed  among  those  having,  in  the  large,  the  Christian 
spirit.  They  afford  an  opportunity  to  the  Christian  forces 
to  carry  on  unsectarian,  broad,  and  thorough  programs 
of  religious  education.  Religion  can  count  the  State  uni¬ 
versity  as  an  ally,  in  spirit  if  not  in  form. 

3.  Suggestions  for  the  Future 

The  effort  has  been  made  in  this  chapter  and  the  pre¬ 
ceding  one  to  state  in  some  detail  the  factors  from  which 
a  science  of  religious  education  for  college  and  university 
students  may  be  constructed.  It  is  evident  that  there  is 
a  wealth  of  material  for  such  a  science.  The  impulses, 
instincts,  and  habits ;  the  personnel — administrative, 
teaching,  and  student ;  the  academic  structure,  the 
organization,  and  the  rich  content  of  subject  matter,  are 
there;  even  the  motives  and  methods  are  generally  favor¬ 
able,  though  not  always  defined  with  clearness.  A  few  of 
the  instruments  of  religious  education  have  become 
appreciably  effective.  There  are  small  groups  of  special¬ 
ized  workers.  But  what  has  been  done  is  a  mere 
beginning. 

For  the  consummation  of  this  task  the  most  important 
thing  is  a  deeper  recognition  that  an  institution  of  higher 
learning  cannot  become  an  ideal  instrument  for  religious 
education  unless  there  is  a  will  to  make  it  such,  in  the 
minds  of  those  responsible  for  its  policy  and  program. 
It  is  fundamental  that  the  faculty,  whether  in  denom¬ 
inational  college  or  State  university,  be  chosen  with 


268  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


reference  to  this  desired  end.  This  does  not  mean  that 
the  corporation  shall  attempt  to  “put  something  over”  at 
whatever  cost.  It  means  that  religious  education  must 
be  treated  with  respect.  It  means  that  the  promotion  of 
religion  must  be  recognized  as  essential  to  the  highest 
promotion  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  in  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  the  race. 

Still  more  is  needed  than  a  favorable  disposition  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities  if  religion  is  to  receive  its  true 
place  in  higher  education.  There  are  certain  processes 
which  demand  fuller  development. 

(a)  A  beginning  only  has  been  made  in  the  matter  of 
necessary  definitions.  A  preliminary  definition  of  a  unit 
of  Bible  study  for  secondary  schools,  with  a  view  to 
credit  for  admission  to  college,  has  gained  wide  acceptance. 
There  is  a  working  definition  of  a  college  department  of 
Biblical  literature  and  history.  A  representative  group 
is  at  work  on  a  definition  of  a  college  course  in  religious 
education.  These  are  but  illustrations  of  what  is  re¬ 
quired  within  the  broad  expanse  of  the  curriculum.  Not 
only  must  units  and  courses  and  departments  and  schools, 
which  are  concerned  immediately  and  formally  with  the 
task  of  religious  education,  be  clearly  defined,  but  per¬ 
sistent  effort  must  be  made  to  place  a  vital  interpretation 
upon  the  more  remote  factors  of  the  curriculum.  The 
religious  implications  of  literature,  history,  art,  phi¬ 
losophy;  of  the  social,  mathematical,  physical,  and  biolog¬ 
ical  sciences;  of  the  vocational  subjects  and  of  “student 
activities”  and  the  forms  of  college  government  and  disci¬ 
pline  as  well,  must  be  studied  and  their  values  for  re¬ 
ligious  education  clearly  understood.  The  process  of 
definition  must  extend  also  into  the  area  of  ideas  and 
ideals — to  motives  and  ends,  methods  and  means,  con¬ 
cerning  which  at  present  there  is  much  confusion. 

(b)  There  should  be  a  thoroughgoing  revaluation  of 
the  means  of  religious  education  in  the  college  and  uni¬ 
versity.  The  daily  chapel,  the  sermon,  pastoral  care,  the 


THE  TAX-SUPPORTED  INSTITUTION  269 

“series  of  meetings/’  the  prayer  meeting,  the  varied  ac¬ 
tivities  of  the  volunteer  agencies,  are  all  traditional  ex¬ 
pressions  of  the  attempt  to  serve  the  religious  needs  of 
students  and  faculty.  To  what  extent  do  these  and  others 
like  them  actually  function  in  religious  education? 

(c)  The  more  recently  devised  means  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation  need  also  to  be  given  the  most  serious  study: 

1.  The  Biblical  Department  is  now  coming  to  be  clearly 
recognized.  But  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  may  or  may 
not  be  religious  education.  Religion  is  not  merely  a  sub¬ 
ject  of  study.  If  the  teacher  of  the  Bible  is  both  a  scholar 
and  a  teacher  of  religion,  he  will  teach  with  the  spirit 
that  makes  men  religious  as  well  as  with  the  understand¬ 
ing  that  makes  men  scholars.  One  who  is  to  teach  re¬ 
ligion  must  be  compounded  of  the  right  proportions  of 
scholarship  and  sympathy. 

2.  A  few  colleges  have  departments  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation  well  equipped  and  well  manned.  When  these  de¬ 
partments  are  adequately  developed  they  will  be  able  to 
serve  two  important  functions.  They  will,  in  the  first 
place,  make  a  valuable  contribution  on  the  cultural  side 
to  the  religious  development  of  students ;  in  the  second 
place,  they  will  lay  the  foundations  for  a  professional 
training  which  will  meet  to  some  extent  the  greatest 
need  of  religious  education  today — the  need  of  qualified 
teachers  of  religion,  in  addition  to  the  preaching  min¬ 
istry.  Religious  education  will  advance  slowly  until  the 
colleges  can  pour  forth  into  the  schools  of  the  local 
Churches  a  stream  of  teachers,  administrators,  and  super¬ 
visors  as  well  equipped  for  their  task  as  those  who  now 
go  into  the  work  of  the  public  schools. 

3.  A  number  of  institutions  are  giving  orientation 
courses  in  which  the  effort  is  made  to  assist  the  student 
in  finding  his  place  in  the  midst  of  his  enlarging  life. 
It  is  important  that  the  leaders  of  these  courses  be  not 
blind  leading  the  blind.  At  their  best  estate  the  courses 
deal  with  what  may  be  called  the  fundamentals  of  human 


270  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

living  in  their  individual  and  social  implications,  a  mean¬ 
ing  being  given  to  social  broad  enough  to  lead  to  divine 
as  well  as  human  relationships. 

4.  One  of  the  most  recent  specialists  in  the  field  of  re¬ 
ligious  education  is  the  university  pastor.  While  no  sys¬ 
tem  has  been  devised  as  yet  to  give  these  men  formal 
training  for  their  specialized  tasks,  they  are  increasing  in 
efficiency  as  well  as  numbers.  Their  teaching  function 
has  not  yet  been  highly  developed.  While  having  fairly 
well  defined  denominational  responsibilities,  it  is  im¬ 
portant  that  they  work  out  interdenominational  arrange¬ 
ments  by  which  rivalries  and  duplications  may  be  avoided 
and  a  united  religious  appeal  made  to  the  university. 

5.  At  a  number  of  the  universities  there  are  founda¬ 
tions,  Bible  chairs,  or  schools  of  religion  which  are  ap¬ 
proaching  the  problems  of  religious  education  from  the 
educational  rather  than  the  pastoral  point  of  view.  The 
tendency  thus  far  has  been  for  these  agencies  to  attempt 
primarily  to  meet  denominational  needs.  The  University 
School  of  Religion  is  scarcely  a  fact  as  yet.  It  will  be¬ 
come  a  fact  as  the  processes  of  religious  education  extend 
and  ecclesiastical  leaders  come  to  understand  that  a  de¬ 
nominational  approach  cannot  provide  an  effective  instru¬ 
ment  of  education  in  the  university. 

Finally,  and  of  great  importance,  there  can  he  no  con¬ 
sistent  system  of  religious  education  until  there  is  a  dis¬ 
position  to  coordinate  as  well  as  develop  agencies.  All 
agencies  must  be  cemented  in  the  spirit  of  unselfish  co¬ 
operation  into  a  united  organism  guided  by  a  common 
purpose.  This  applies  not  only  to  the  work  of  the  various 
denominations  in  their  relation  to  each  other  but  quite  as 
strongly  to  the  relation  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Y.W.C.A. 
to  the  Churches.  It  will  be  only  when  the  day  of  full 
cooperation  comes  that  religion  will  occupy  a  command¬ 
ing  place  in  higher  education. 


CHAPTER  XII 


EDUCATION  FOR  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY 

The  central  place  in  the  Church’s  educational  system 
is  held  by  the  theological  seminary.  The  character  of 
the  training  given  here  conditions  success  or  failure  all 
along  the  line.  What  the  Church  is  to  become  will  depend 
largely  upon  its  ministry,  and  what  its  ministry  is  to 
be  will  be  determined  largely  by  the  kind  of  preparation 
received.  The  tone  of  the  Church  at  large  will  not  rise 
far  above  the  tone  of  the  individual  minister,  who  as 
leader  of  worship,  teacher,  pastor,  administrator  of  parish 
activities,  director  of  social  work,  and  interpreter  of  the 
meaning  of  Christianity  for  our  contemporary  social  life, 
is  the  mainspring  of  the  Christian  movement.  The  re¬ 
cruiting  and  training  of  the  ministry  becomes  therefore 
an  issue  of  paramount  importance  for  the  entire  Church. 

i.  The  Present  Agencies  of  Theological  Education 

This  fact  has  been  fully  appreciated  by  the  Churches 
of  America.  From  the  first  they  have  realized  the  im¬ 
portance  of  an  educated  ministry  and  taken  steps  to  pro¬ 
vide  it.  The  chief  motive  which  led  to  the  founding  of 
our  colleges  and  universities,  as  was  pointed  out  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  was  the  desire  to  furnish  facilities  for 
the  education  of  a  competent  ministry.  When  theological 
instruction  became  separated  from  the  college  and  uni¬ 
versity — in  part  as  a  result  of  the  natural  tendency  to 
specialization,  in  larger  part  as  a  result  of  the  growing 
secularization  of  all  public  education — it  was  supplied  in 

271 


272  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

special  professional  schools,  sometimes  affiliated  with  the 
university,  more  often  entirely  independent.  To  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  this  concern  for  the  education  of  the  ministry  the 
number  of  theological  schools  and  the  funds  invested  in 
them  bear  convincing  witness.  Today  in  the  United 
States,  according  to  a  survey  now  being  completed  by 
the  Committee  on  Social  and  Religious  Surveys  and  the 
Council  of  Church  Boards  of  Education,  there  are  131 
Protestant  seminaries,  including  those  of  all  types.1  Nine 
are  theological  departments  in  colleges  or  universities. 
Certainly  we  are  not  lacking  in  facilities  for  theological 
education. 

To  study  the  work  of  these  institutions  in  detail  does 
not  lie  within  the  plan  of  the  present  report.  Such  a  study 
is  being  made  in  the  survey  referred  to  and  concrete  illus¬ 
trations  of  the  work  done  by  different  types  of  institu¬ 
tions  are  there  given.  We  must  confine  ourselves  here 
to  certain  general  considerations  which  bear  on  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  theological  education  as  a  whole. 

The  seminaries  differ  so  widely  both  in  their  ideals  and 
in  their  methods  that  generalizations  are  difficult,  if  not 
impossible.  Yet,  viewing  the  situation  as  a  whole,  one 
may  say  that  in  their  history  they  have  clearly  reflected 
the  qualities  which  have  characterized  the  religious  life 
of  America.  The  conception  of  Christianity  inculcated 
has  been  the  generally  prevalent  one  and  the  existing 
denominational  situation  has  been  taken  for  granted.  The 
prime  responsibility  of  the  seminary  has  been  regarded 
as  the  training  of  men  for  the  ministry  of  its  own  de¬ 
nomination.  The  curriculum  has  been  simple  and  has 
varied  little  in  the  different  schools.  It  has  consisted  of 
a  knowledge  of  the  languages  of  the  Bible,  exegesis, 
Church  history,  systematic  theology,  and  practical  the¬ 
ology.  The  prevailing  beliefs  in  the  denomination  to 


1  This  figure  does  not  include  seminaries  exclusively  for 
Negroes.  Concerning  these  also  a  survey  is  now  being  made. 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  273 

which  the  seminary  belonged  have  been  accepted  with 
little  question.  When  attention  has  been  given  to  the 
teaching  of  other  Churches  it  has  been  chiefly  to  point 
out  errors  and  to  illustrate  by  contrast  with  the  more 
adequate  theology  of  the  teacher’s  own  denomination.2 

Of  the  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  Protestant 
seminaries,  the  great  majority  are  still  under  denomina¬ 
tional  control.  The  method  of  their  control  varies  widely 
in  the  different  denominations,  and  even  in  different  in¬ 
stitutions  in  the  same  denomination.  In  some  cases  con¬ 
trol  remains  in  the  hands  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
and  the  character  of  the  teaching  is  required  to  conform 
closely  to  the  official  standards  of  the  church.  In  other 
cases,  even  when  the  theoretical  right  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  to  determine  the  character  of  the  teaching  is 
insisted  upon,  in  practice  the  entire  control  of  the  school 
is  committed  to  the  boards  of  trustees  of  the  several  in¬ 
stitutions,  which  usually  means  that  the  instruction  is 
determined  by  the  judgment  of  the  faculty  and  the  pre¬ 
vailing  opinion  of  that  section  of  the  Church  in  which 
the  graduates  are  expected  to  work. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  seminaries,  as  in 
the  colleges  and  universities,  the  tendency  has  been  to 
weaken  denominational  control  and  to  give  greater  inde¬ 
pendence  to  the  local  authorities.  This  is  true  even  of 
institutions  of  conservative  character  which  pride  them¬ 
selves  upon  their  denominational  orthodoxy. 

Besides  the  seminaries  under  denominational  control 
are  those,  relatively  few  in  number,  which  are  completely 
independent,  and  which  have  definitely  adopted  the  ideal 
of  undenominational,  or  better  interdenominational,  as 
distinct  from  denominational  theological  education.  These 
institutions  are  of  two  kinds.  The  first  are  the  theological 
faculties  of  a  few  of  the  great  universities,  which  treat 

2  One  of  the  merits  of  Dr.  Charles  Hodge’s  “Systematic  The¬ 
ology”  was  that  it  gave  a  full  account  of  the  positions  held  by 
churches  and  schools  different  from  that  of  the  author. 


274  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

religion  as  a  subject  of  scientific  research,  like  other  sub¬ 
jects,  prepare  for  the  ministry  as  a  profession  as  they 
prepare  for  law  and  medicine,  are  governed  by  the  corpo¬ 
ration  of  the  university  and  give  degrees  in  theology  on 
conditions  exactly  parallel  to  those  which  govern  the  giv¬ 
ing  of  degrees  in  other  subjects.  The  others  are  autono¬ 
mous  institutions  owing  their  origin  to  private  benevo¬ 
lence,  and  governed  wholly  by  their  own  self-perpetuating 
Boards  of  Trustees.3  In  both  kinds  of  institutions  pro¬ 
vision  is  made  for  post-graduate  instruction  in  theology 
and  graduates  of  other  seminaries  are  welcomed.  This 
is  also  increasingly  the  case  in  the  better  denominational 
institutions. 

In  practice  it  is  not  always  easy  to  draw  the  line  be¬ 
tween  a  denominational  seminary  and  one  that  is  unde¬ 
nominational  or  interdenominational  in  the  latter  sense. 
The  increasing  tendency  toward  freedom  from  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  control  means  that  many  even  of  the  institutions  in 
which  there  is  a  definite  official  connection  with  the  de¬ 
nomination  may,  for  all  practical  intents  and  purposes, 
be  regarded  as  virtually  independent. 

Besides  the  differences  which  result  from  denomina¬ 
tional  history  and  traditions,  there  are  differences  which 
reflect  differing  theological  attitudes  and  sympathies. 
These  differences  not  only  divide  schools  within  the  same 
denomination ;  they  form  points  of  contact  between  schools 
of  different  denominations.  Each  large  denomination  has 
its  more  liberal  and  its  more  conservative  schools  with 
the  various  shadings  within  each.  In  each  case  the  sym¬ 
pathy  that  grows  out  of  similar  temperament  and  outlook 
reaches  beyond  denominational  lines. 

8  In  the  theological  colleges  connected  with  McGill  and  Toronto 
Universities,  Canada,  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  New  York, 
for  instance,  we  find  an  example  of  interdenominational  control 
in  the  stricter  sense,  the  several  interested  denominations  having 
approved  a  plan  by  which  much  of  the  instruction  is  given  in 


common. 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  275 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  differences,  denominational 
and  theological,  there  are  certain  general  factors  which 
influence  theological  education  as  a  whole.  These  factors 
we  shall  now  briefly  consider.  We  shall  take  up  suc¬ 
cessively  (1)  the  conditions  affecting  present-day  theo¬ 
logical  education;  (2)  the  way  in  which  the  seminaries 
are  meeting  these  conditions,  and  (3)  certain  desiderata 
for  the  future. 

2.  Conditions  Affecting  Present-day  Theological 
Education 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  past  the  prevailing  temper 
of  American  theological  education  has  been  conservative. 
It  has  reflected  and  indeed  stereotyped  conditions  in  the 
denominations.  The  horizon  in  the  different  schools  has 
been  limited,  the  temper  one  of  satisfaction  with  things 
as  they  are.  Recently,  however,  certain  new  conditions 
have  made  themselves  felt  which  have  acted  as  a  ferment 
in  the  theological  world.  These  conditions  are  partly 
internal,  the  result  of  changing  educational  ideals,  partly 
external,  the  effect  of  changes  in  the  environment  in 
which  the  minister  must  do  his  work. 

The  change  in  educational  ideal  shows  itself  in  an  in¬ 
creasing  emphasis  upon  the  practical  aspect  of  education, 
as  a  task  affecting  the  whole  man — will  and  emotion  as 
well  as  intellect — with  a  corresponding  emphasis  upon 
practice  and  experiment. 

It  is  true  that  the  prime  motive  for  theological  educa¬ 
tion  in  the  past  was  practical.  The  pragmatism  of  Wil¬ 
liam  James  was  anticipated  in  the  theology  of  more  than 
one  of  the  Puritans  who  insisted  that  every  doctrine  of  the 
theological  system  must  be  brought  to  the  test  of  life. 

Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  fact  this  intimate 

• 

contact  has  not  been  maintained.  Doctrine  has  been  di¬ 
vorced  from  the  experience  which  it  is  designed  to  direct 
and  interpret  and  conceived  as  a  series  of  abstract  propo¬ 
sitions  to  be  received  on  authority  whether  they  could  be 


276  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

verified  in  experience  or  not.  This  tendency  has  been 
reenforced  by  the  disposition  of  Protestant  theologians  to 
confine  God's  work  of  revelation  to  the  past.  It  is  true 
that  the  standards  of  all  the  Churches  emphasize  God's 
presence  in  the  world  today  and  insist  that  the  Bible  be¬ 
comes  revealing  to  the  individual  only  when  interpreted 
by  the  present  Spirit.  The  fact  remains  that  the  Bible 
has  been  isolated  from  life  and  regarded  as  a  law  book 
to  be  received  on  authority  irrespective  of  its  verification 
in  experience.  Attention  has  been  concentrated  upon 
God’s  dealings  with  the  Prophets  and  the  Apostles,  or  at 
most  with  the  Fathers  and  with  the  Reformers.  We 
have  not  made  the  present  Church  the  subject  of  our 
study  or  had  open  ears  to  hear  what  God  might  be  saying 
to  us  through  His  prophets  of  today. 

This  excessive  preoccupation  with  the  past  runs  counter 
to  present  tendencies  in  education.  We  study  the  past 
that  we  may  be  fitted  to  live  in  the  present  and  the  future. 
But  for  this  we  must  know  the  present  as  well  as  the 
past,  and  above  all  we  must  know  ourselves  as  agents 
through  which  the  lessons  of  the  past  are  brought  to  bear 
on  the  present  for  the  sake  of  the  future.  But  the  only 
way  we  can  learn  to  know  ourselves  is  to  watch  ourselves 
at  work.  Modern  education  therefore  emphasizes  the 
importance  of  practice  as  the  test  of  theory,  of  experience 
as  the  key  to  knowledge,  of  whole  values  of  life  as  a 
corrective  of  partial  or  inadequate  conceptions.  The 
seminaries  in  common  with  all  other  educational  institu¬ 
tions  are  feeling  the  effects  of  this  new  spirit,  and  are 
modifying  their  practise  in  ways  presently  to  be  described. 

This  new  educational  outlook  is  itself  an  effect  of  that 
far-reaching  intellectual  movement  which  we  call  modern 
science — a  movement  which  has  revolutionized  our  view 
of  the  physical  universe,  put  into  our  hands  undreamed¬ 
of  powers  over  nature,  and  left  no  phase  of  our  intel¬ 
lectual  life  untouched.  The  man  who  has  felt  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  scientific  spirit  thinks  of  the  world  as  a  whole, 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  277 

of  life  in  all  its  phases  as  developing  according  to  law, 
and  believes  that  the  way  to  understand  any  part  of  it  is 
by  an  impartial  study  of  all  the  relevant  facts  in  an  atti¬ 
tude  of  faith.  This  new  attitude  has  important  conse¬ 
quence  for  theological  study. 

For  one  thing  it  tends  to  break  down  the  unquestioning 
acceptance  of  authority  which  was  the  atmosphere  in 
which  the  older  theological  education  took  place;  it  sub¬ 
stitutes  a  critical  and  inquiring  spirit  for  the  old  attitude 
of  simple  trust.  This  spirit  is  not  confined  to  those  who 
accept  the  conclusions  of  modern  criticism.  It  is  felt 
equally  by  those  who  reject  these  conclusions.  The  con¬ 
ditions  to  which  they  must  address  themselves  are  altered. 
The  attitude  of  the  men  to  whom  their  preaching  is  ad¬ 
dressed  has  changed.  They  ask  a  reason  for  what  they 
were  formerly  expected  to  take  on  trust,  a  reason  which 
shall  be  consistent  with  their  beliefs  in  other  departments 
of  knowledge.  The  apologetic  of  the  seminary  must 
recognize  this  new  attitude  and  be  able  to  meet  it. 

A  second  effect  of  the  scientific  movement  is  a  great 
increase  in  specialization.  As  the  field  of  our  knowledge 
expands,  the  capacity  of  the  individual  to  master  it 
diminishes.  If  he  is  to  have  first-hand  knowledge  of 
anything,  he  must  concentrate.  So  knowledge  is  broken 
up  into  compartments  and  the  scholar  chooses  to  which 
he  will  devote  himself.  The  historian  studies  a  period; 
the  critic  confines  himself  to  a  single  problem.  The  com¬ 
prehensive  view  which  the  theory  of  science  requires 
proves  impracticable  in  fact  and  the  narrowness  of  tradi¬ 
tional  orthodoxy  is  succeeded  by  the  narrowness  of  un¬ 
imaginative  specialization.  The  old  theology  may  have 
been  inadequate  in  its  philosophy.  It  was  at  least  phi¬ 
losophy.  The  new  science  is  in  danger  of  dispensing  with 
philosophy  altogether. 

Paralleling  these  changes  in  mental  attitude — in  part 
their  consequence,  in  part  their  cause — are  changes  in 
the  environment  in  which  the  student  must  work.  These 


278  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

changes  have  been  often  described  and  we  need  not  repeat 
the  description  here.  They  consist  in  a  growing  com¬ 
plexity  in  the  conditions  of  life,  a  growing  interde¬ 
pendence  of  individuals  and  of  peoples,  and  at  the  same 
time  an  intensification  of  racial  and  class  divisions,  a 
growing  sense  of  insecurity  due  to  the  rapid  changes  in 
economic  conditions  and  the  resulting  instability  in  the 
status  of  the  individual.  These  changes  together  consti¬ 
tute  what  is  often  called  the  Social  Problem,  and  the 
attempt  to  bring  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  bear  upon  them 
is  known  as  the  Social  Gospel. 

These  changes  affect  the  life  and  work  of  the  Church 
in  important  and  perplexing  ways  and  make  correspond¬ 
ing  demands  upon  those  who  are  responsible  for  training 
the  ministry.  In  the  country  we  see  a  steady  weakening 
of  the  churches  through  the  diversion  of  the  people  to 
centers  of  urban  industry.  In  the  cities  we  find  the 
massing  of  exceptional  populations  often  of  alien  race  and 
foreign  speech  with  needs  and  problems  of  their  own. 
As  a  result,  we  find  an  increasing  number  of  rural 
churches  which  cannot  afford  to  support  a  fully  trained 
minister,  side  by  side  with  an  increasing  demand  from 
the  cities  for  men  who  are  specially  trained  to  deal  with 
the  new  problems  which  are  arising. 

These  conditions  at  home  are  paralleled  by  changes  in 
the  foreign  field.  Here,  too,  the  demands  made  upon  the 
missionary  are  increasing,  while  the  difficulties  which  he 
faces  grow  pari  passu.  There  is  a  growing  demand  for 
specially  trained  men  and  women  to  meet  the  new  tasks, 
educational,  economic,  social,  which  the  needs  of  the  time 
are  forcing  upon  the  churches,  and  many  foreign  mis¬ 
sionaries  welcome  the  opportunity  their  furlough  presents 
to  carry  their  study  further  than  was  possible  under  the 
simple  curriculum  of  the  older  seminary. 

The  difficulty  of  those  who  are  responsible  for  the 
policy  of  our  seminaries  is  further  enhanced  by  the  grow- 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  279 

ing  impatience  of  a  considerable  number  of  people  in  the 
churches  with  the  slow  methods  which  have  been  charac¬ 
teristic  of  our  theological  education  in  the  past.  It  is 
not  only  that  there  are  not  enough  fully  trained  ministers 
for  the  existing  churches.  The  charge  is  made  that  the 
training  given  by  the  seminaries,  conservative  and  liberal 
alike,  is  not  practical.  It  fails  to  fit  men  for  the  work  they 
have  to  do.  The  demand  is  for  a  shorter  and  more 
effective  training,  a  training  that  will  substitute  practical 
acquaintance  with  the  Bible  for  critical  theories  about  it 
and  use  the  time  given  to  studying  the  Church  in  the  past 
for  teaching  ministers  how  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the 
men  of  today.  Bible  institutes  like  those  at  Chicago  and 
Los  Angeles  attract  great  numbers  of  students,  and  offer 
their  graduates  to  the  churches  as  substitutes  for  the 
ministers  trained  by  the  seminaries.  With  this  dissatis¬ 
faction  with  the  older  seminaries  goes  often  a  theological 
conservatism  which  rejects  criticism  in  all  its  forms  and 
often — though  by  no  means  always — finds  the  key  of 
Biblical  interpretation  in  a  premillenarian  view  of  prophecy 
and  a  revived  anticipation  of  the  speedy  visible  advent 
of  Christ. 

It  is  against  the  background  of  such  facts  that  we 
must  define  the  present  task  of  theological  education.  Be¬ 
sides  providing  the  requisite  supply  of  ministers  for  the 
normal  congregations,  the  seminaries  are  called  upon  to 
do  four  things: 

1.  To  make  provision  for  a  differentiated  ministry  to 
meet  the  new  needs  of  different  types  of  communities, 
such  as  our  immigrant  and  industrial  centers. 

2.  To  provide  the  best  possible  training  for  men  who 
cannot  afford  time  for  the  full  theological  course. 

3.  To  provide  facilities  for  supplementing  the  inade¬ 
quate  training  of  men  now  in  the  ministry. 

4.  To  train  specialists  who  can  deal  adequately  with 
the  complex  problems  before  the  modem  church. 


280  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 
3.  How  the  Seminaries  Are  Facing  the  Situation 

What,  then,  are  the  seminaries  doing  to  meet  these  new 
demands  ?  It  is  obvious  that  no  single  answer  will  fit  all 
the  facts.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  call  attention  to 
certain  significant  changes  and  tendencies. 

One  result  has  been  to  strengthen  those  seminaries 
which  are  located  in  or  near  great  cities  at  the  expense  of 
those  which  are  located  in  smaller  communities.  In  the 
cities  all  the  problems  of  our  modern  life  come  to  a  head. 
They  are  laboratories  in  which  lawyers  and  doctors  are 
trained  for  their  professions;  it  is  natural  to  conclude 
that  they  will  prove  equally  adapted  for  the  training  of 
the  ministry.  Accordingly  we  see  an  increasing  number 
of  seminaries  seeking  sites  in  or  near  great  cities  and 
using  the  facilities  which  the  city  offers  the  individual 
through  its  churches  and  benevolent  institutions  for  the 
practical  training  of  their  students. 

A  second  result  has  been  to  increase  the  number  of 
seminaries  which  desire  university  connection.  With  the 
increasing  demand  upon  the  seminary  for  instruction  in 
new  subjects,  it  is  impossible  to  meet  the  need  from  the 
resources  of  the  institution  itself.  It  is  natural,  therefore, 
to  seek  affiliation  with  the  university  which,  from  its 
ampler  resources,  can  supplement  the  lack  of  the  theologi¬ 
cal  school.  In  some  cases  (as  at  Harvard  and  in  the 
Canadian  universities)  groups  of  seminaries  cooperate 
with  one  another  in  a  single  comprehensive  scheme  of 
theological  education  under  the  direction  of  the  university 
and  for  its  degrees. 

This  tendency  to  concentrate  in  great  centers  and  adopt 
university  methods  is,  however,  not  universal.  Some 
seminaries  prefer  the  quiet  which  a  less  crowded  life 
makes  possible,  and  regard  the  greater  leisure  and  con¬ 
sequently  greater  concentration  as  advantages  which  more 
than  outweigh  the  disadvantages  of  their  isolation. 

In  some  cases,  we  find  seminaries  (e.g.  Bangor  and 
Colgate)  definitely  concentrating  upon  the  task  of  pre- 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  281 


paring  the  man  who  cannot  afford  the  time  for  a  B.  A. 
degree,  providing  a  joint  course  in  theology  and  the  arts 
(as  at  Colgate  and  the  Union  Theological  College  at 
Chicago)  or  in  theology  alone  (as  at  Bangor)  which 
can  be  taken  by  men  of  high  school  grade.  In  view  of 
the  facts  to  which  attention  has  already  been  called,  this 
deliberate  attempt  to  meet  the  needs  of  men  without  col¬ 
lege  training  is  to  be  commended  and  it  would  be  well  if 
other  institutions  should  follow  the  same  example  where 
the  needs  of  their  constituency  seem  to  require  it. 

With  these  various  changes  in  aim  and  in  relationship 
go  corresponding  changes  in  method  such  as  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  new  subjects  into  the  curriculum,  the  provision  of 
specialized  training,  the  freer  use  of  the  principle  of 
electives,  and  the  use  of  practice  or ‘field  work  as  part  of 
the  curriculum. 

One  of  the  most  obvious  results  of  the  new  demands 
made  upon  the  seminaries  has  been  the  addition  to  the 
older  curriculum  of  a  number  of  new  subjects.  Thus 
Christian  ethics  has  been  separated  from  systematic  the¬ 
ology  and  made  a  department  of  its  own.  In  not  a  few 
seminaries  it  is  given  its  rightful  place  as  dealing  with  the 
whole  problem  of  bringing  Christian  motives  and  ideals  to 
bear  upon  all  our  contemporary  industrial,  social,  politi¬ 
cal,  and  international  life.  A  group  of  new  studies  have 
differentiated  themselves  from  the  older  apologetics. 
Among  these  comparative  religion  and  the  psychology  of 
religion  are  the  most  important.  The  former  supplements 
the  detailed  study  of  Christianity  by  an  inquiry  into  the 
other  great  historic  religions  which  are  its  rivals.  The 
latter  attempts  to  lay  a  foundation  for  the  study  of  the 
Christian  experience  in  an  analysis  of  the  psychological 
processes  which  characterize  the  religious  life  in  general.4 

4  Besides  these  new  studies  the  older  subjects  of  the  curriculum 
are  developing  new  aspects  with  a  literature  and  interest  of  their 
own.  Besides  the  exegesis  of  the  Biblical  books,  we  have  Biblical 
Introduction,  Biblical  History,  and  Biblical  Theology;  in  addition 
to  Church  History,  the  History  of  Doctrine  and  Symbolics. 


282  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Especially  characteristic  of  the  day  is  the  introduction 
of  new  subjects  dealing  with  the  Church  at  work.  Re¬ 
ligious  education  is  gaining  a  significant  place  in  the  cur¬ 
riculum.  Courses  on  this  subject  are  designed  not  only 
to  give  the  minister  acquaintance  with  modern  educational 
theory  and  practise,  but  to  furnish  him  with  technical  in¬ 
formation  as  to  the  methods  and  organization  of  the 
Church’s  educational  agencies  in  such  a  way  as  to  fit 
him  for  practical  leadership  in  this  most  important  and 
responsible  part  of  the  Church’s  work.  Foreign  missions 
have  been  made  a  subject  of  intensive  study,  and  students 
while  still  in  the  seminary  receive  instruction  in  the  ways 
in  which  through  the  rising  Churches  in  other  lands  a 
Christian  civilization  can  be  built  up  throughout  the  world. 
In  some  seminaries  similar  detailed  instruction  is  given 
in  the  more  technical  problems  of  home  missions,  such  as 
immigrant  groups,  industrial  centers,  and  the  country 
church.  The  relation  of  the  church  to  all  the  forces  of 
social  betterment  in  the  community  is  also  studied. 

A  result  of  this  multiplication  of  studies  is  such  a 
crowding  of  the  curriculum  that  it  is  impossible  for  any 
student  to  cover  all  the  subjects  offered  in  the  time  at  his 
disposal.  Recourse  is  necessary  to  the  principle  of  elec¬ 
tives  and  the  student  finds  himself  obliged  to  choose  be¬ 
tween  a  multitude  of  conflicting  courses.  Under  the 
pressure  of  new  subjects  the  temptation  is  offered  either 
to  curtail  the  time  given  to  the  older  studies  or  to  omit 
some  of  them  altogether.  The  pressure  is  particularly 
severe  in  the  linguistic  group  which  used  to  form  the 
basis  of  the  required  curriculum.  Many  seminaries  no 
longer  require  Hebrew  of  their  students  and  in  not  a 
few  cases  Greek  also  has  become  an  elective. 

With  increase  in  the  number  of  electives  we  find  an 
increased  tendency  to  specialization.  Specialization  has 
long  been  applied  to  the  more  technical  and  academic 
studies  of  the  curriculum.  It  is  now  making  itself  felt 
on  the  practical  side.  The  differentiation  of  the  task  is 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  283 

met  by  differentiated  courses.  Besides  the  group  of 
studies  which  fit  men  for  the  ordinary  pastorate,  provision 
is  made  for  those  looking  forward  to  the  foreign  field,  to 
social  and  philanthropic  work,  and  to  religious  education 
in  the  technical  sense.  This  provision,  to  be  sure,  has 
not  gone  far  and  is  not  without  its  dangers,  but  it  is  at 
least  a  serious  attempt  to  face  the  real  conditions  which 
the  modern  minister  must  meet.  In  this  connection  men¬ 
tion  should  be  made  of  the  summer  schools  which  are 
being  held  for  home  mission  workers  and  others  engaged 
in  special  forms  of  work,  in  which  technical  problems  are 
discussed  with  a  fulness  not  possible  in  the  seminary. 

Of  special  significance  for  the  training  of  the  ministry 
is  the  attempt  now  being  made  to  correlate  the  theoretical 
work  in  the  classroom  with  the  practical  work  done  by  the 
students  in  churches,  Sunday  School,  and  social  agencies. 
In  a  few  seminaries  this  work  is  carefully  supervised  and 
credit  is  given  for  it  in  the  curriculum.  Tht  student  is 
required  to  discuss  his  work  with  his  instructor  and 
through  group  discussion  of  problems  and  methods  ac¬ 
quires  a  more  intelligent  understanding  of  his  objective 
and  the  way  to  be  taken  to  reach  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
conditions  confronting  him  in  the  community. 

Such  are  some  of  the  methods  which  have  been  taken 
by  some  of  the  seminaries  to  meet  the  new  demands  which 
are  being  made  upon  them.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
they  are  being  used  in  very  different  degrees  and  that  in 
many  seminaries  the  old  curriculum  is  still  maintained 
practically  unchanged.  Nevertheless  it  can  be  said  with¬ 
out  fear  of  contradiction  that  a  new  spirit  is  abroad  in 
theological  education — a  spirit  which  is  full  of  promise 
for  the  future. 

One  indication  of  this  new  spirit  is  the  growing  sym¬ 
pathy  between  theological  teachers  of  different  denomina¬ 
tions  and  schools  of  thought.  We  have  spoken  of  the 
disposition  of  the  seminaries  to  broaden  their  horizon 
and  to  think  of  the  church  as  including  other  denomina- 


284  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tions  than  their  own.  This  disposition  appears  in  the 
willingness  to  receive  students  of  different  denominations 
and  to  provide  instruction  suited  to  their  needs.  In  many 
of  the  larger  seminaries  students  of  different  denomina¬ 
tions  are  studying  side  by  side.  This  is  true  not  only  of 
university  departments  and  independent  seminaries  but 
of  not  a  few  which  are  under  denominational  control. 
More  significant  still  is  the  inclusion  of  representatives  of 
different  communions  in  the  same  faculty — a  practice 
which  has  proved  entirely  practicable  and  successful. 

Outward  and  visible  expression  of  the  growing  spirit 
of  unity  was  furnished  by  the  formation  in  1918  of  the 
Conference  of  Theological  Seminaries — a  gathering  of 
teachers  of  different  theological  schools  which  meets 
every  two  years.  At  the  first  meeting  held  at  Harvard 
at  the  invitation  of  President  Lowell,  more  than  fifty  in¬ 
stitutions  were  represented.  Subsequent  meetings  with 
wide  representation  have  been  held  at  Princeton  and 
Toronto.  In  this  Conference  teachers  of  different  de¬ 
nominations  widely  separated  in  theological  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  faith  gather  for  friendly  discussion  of  their  com¬ 
mon  problems.  A  continuation  committee  meets  in  the 
interim  and  other  committees  are  conducting  investigations 
which  will  be  for  the  mutual  advantage  of  all  concerned. 
Thus  for  the  first  time  the  theological  teachers  of  the 
country  have  formed  an  organization  for  common  ex¬ 
pression  through  which  they  can  not  only  exchange  opinion 
but  address  themselves  in  an  effective  way  to  those  larger 
problems  and  tasks  which  concern  them  all  alike.  What 
some  of  these  are  it  remains  to  inquire. 

4.  Desiderata  for  the  Future 

One  of  the  chief  difficulties  in  the  existing  situation 
in  theological  education,  as  in  the  entire  field  of  religious 
education,  is  that  we  are  all  so  busy  trying  to  do  our 
own  particular  part  of  the  work  that  we  have  little  time 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  285 

and  leisure  to  consider  that  work  in  its  larger  setting  as 
part  of  the  educational  task  of  the  Church  as  a  whole. 
Again  and  again  in  the  course  of  this  report  we  have  been 
reminded  of  our  need  of  a  unified  program.  We  need 
such  a  program  in  the  local  church.  We  need  it  in  each 
denomination.  We  need  it  in  the  Church  as  a  whole. 
Only  in  the  light  of  such  a  comprehensive  program  can 
the  task  of  training  the  Church’s  ministry  be  seen  in  its 
true  perspective. 

In  what  follows  we  shall  try  first  to  define  this  task 
in  its  main  outlines ;  secondly,  to  suggest  certain  things 
which  can  and  should  be  done  by  those  who  are  engaged 
in  theological  education,  and,  thirdly,  to  point  out  certain 
things  for  which  the  cooperation  of  others  through  the 
university  and  the  Church  is  necessary. 

And  first  of  the  task.  Primary  among  our  desiderata 
is  a  clearer  definition  of  our  objective.  If  we  are  to 
teach  successfully  we  must  know  whom  and  for  what. 
Here  differentiation  is  needed.  Provision  must  be  made 
for  the  needs  of  at  least  five  kinds  of  students. 

First,  the  minister  who  is  looking  forward  to  the 
service  of  the  normal  church  and  who  must  remain  in 
the  future,  as  in  the  past,  the  central  object  of  seminary 
training. 

Secondly,  the  man  who  cannot  afford  time  or  money 
for  a  full  college  and  seminary  course  but  who  will  be 
needed  in  increasing  numbers  for  various  phases  of 
church  work  as  assistant  and  lay  worker. 

Thirdly,  the  man  looking  forward  to  a  specialized  task 
for  which  technical  training  is  needed  (e.g.  the  foreign 
field,  some  form  of  home  service  such  as  immigrant  or 
country  church  work,  social  or  philanthropic  work, 
Y.M.C.A.  and  Y.W.C.A.  work,  religious  education,  etc.). 

Fourthly,  the  man  preparing  for  teaching  or  research 
in  the  different  branches  of  theological  education. 

Fifthly,  the  man  in  the  ministry  who  needs  to  supple¬ 
ment  his  earlier  education  and  to  be  kept  in  touch  with 


286  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


new  developments  in  the  field  of  Christian  thought  and 
work. 

These  men  have  some  needs  which  can  be  met  in  com¬ 
mon,  others  for  which  special  provision  must  be  made 
through  differentiated  training.  We  have  seen  that  the 
beginning  of  such  differentiation  is  already  taking  place. 
We  need  to  consider  whether  it  does  not  need  to  be  car¬ 
ried  further,  and  if  so,  how  far  this  can  be  done. 

At  least  three  kinds  of  institutions  seem  clearly  needed : 

(a)  The  ordinary  seminary  whose  primary  function  it 

is  to  train  ministers  for  service  in  the  pastorate. 

(b)  The  seminary  of  university  grade  which  adds  to 

its  normal  course  post-graduate  training  in  the 
various  specialized  forms  of  work. 

(c)  The  training  school  for  men  without  college  train¬ 

ing  who  are  fitting  themselves  for  work  in  which 
technical  linguistic  and  historical  training  is  not 
essential. 

The  three  types  of  training  need  not,  of  course,  be 
provided  in  separate  institutions.  Two  or  more  may  be 
combined  in  a  single  institution,  but  it  is  important  to 
recognize  clearly  the  distinct  needs  for  which  provision 
must  be  made. 

One  of  the  primary  needs  of  the  situation  is  an  exami¬ 
nation  of  our  existing  institutions,  in  the  light  of  these 
different  needs,  with  a  view  to  a  clearer  differentiation  of 
their  function,  the  removal  of  needless  competition  or 
duplication,  and  the  provision  of  such  additional  institu¬ 
tional  facilities  as  seem  required.  In  other  words,  what 
is  needed  is  not  only  specialization  within  theological  in¬ 
stitutions  but  specialization  among  them.  Is  there  any 
valid  reason  why  one  hundred  and  thirty-odd  seminaries 
should  all  undertake  to  cover  the  whole  range  of  training 
for  all  the  various  types  of  ministry?  To  do  so  would 
obviously  make  for  inefficiency.  The  great  majority  of 
our  schools  have  nothing  like  the  resources  necessary  to 
provide  thorough  training  for  all  phases  of  the  many- 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  287 

sided  work.  Why  should  they  try  to  do  so  ?  In  university 
education  the  method  of  differentiation  has  proved  both 
practicable  and  advantageous.  While  there  are  a  few  in¬ 
stitutions  with  resources  great  enough  to  offer  competent 
instruction  in  almost  every  field  of  modern  knowledge,  the 
large  majority  make  their  distinctive  contribution  by 
offering,  in  addition  to  the  few  subjects  basic  to  all  educa¬ 
tion,  special  facilities  for  training  in  certain  fields,  engi¬ 
neering — electrical,  mechanical,  civil,  mining — or  agricul¬ 
ture,  or  business,  or  the  fine  arts,  or  some  of  the  many 
other  fields.  Why  should  not  our  theological  seminaries, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  do  likewise?  To  bring  about  an 
agreement  which  would  make  this  practicable  is  con¬ 
fessedly  difficult,  in  the  existing  denominational  situa¬ 
tion,  but  first  steps  at  least  can  be  taken  in  this  direction. 

Here  is  an  institution,  for  example,  located  in  a  great 
metropolis,  offering  every  conceivable  type  of  urban  insti¬ 
tutional  work.  Here  is  another  situated  in  a  small  town, 
presenting  unique  facilities  for  dealing  at  first  hand  with 
the  rural  church.  Why  should  both  schools  undertake 
to  devote  equal  energy  to  the  problems  of  both  the  rural 
and  of  the  city  ministry?  Here  is  another  institution, 
which,  by  virtue  of  its  location  near  foreign  mission 
headquarters  and  a  great  university  which  provides 
courses  on  the  history,  literature,  and  language  of  Oriental 
lands,  has  unusual  opportunities  as  a  school  for  foreign 
service  for  prospective  missionaries  or  missionaries  on 
furlough.  There  is  no  need  for  many  such  institutions; 
there  is  a  tremendous  need  for  a  few  of  the  highest  grade. 
Why  not  concentrate  effort  and  money  in  providing  the 
best  possible  training  in  the  institutions  that  are  best 
equipped  to  furnish  it? 

The  adoption  of  a  definite  policy  of  specialization  would 
make  it  possible  to  deal  effectively  with  the  problem  of 
men  who  are  entering  the  ministry  without  a  thorough 
preparation.  From  such  evidence  as  is  available,  it  is 
probably  not  beyond  the  facts  to  say  that  not  half  of  the 


288  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 


present  ministry  have  had  both  a  full  college  and  seminary 
course.  Large  numbers  have  had  neither.  These  men, 
as  we  have  seen,  have  generally  had  a  brief  period  of 
training  in  one  of  the  ‘‘Bible  Institutes,”  originally  de¬ 
signed  for  the  training  of  lay  workers  but  now  sending 
many  of  their  men  into  the  ministry.  Their  teachers 
are  often  strongly  prejudiced  both  against  the  modern 
view  of  the  Bible  and  the  emphasis  on  the  social  applica¬ 
tion  of  the  Gospel.  In  not  a  few  cases  they  attack  the 
progressive  institutions  with  higher  intellectual  standards 
as  enemies  of  the  faith.  The  only  way  to  offset  these 
influences  is  for  the  seminaries  themselves  to  make  pro¬ 
vision  for  the  training  of  the  men  who  are  going  to 
enter  the  ministry  without  the  normal  period  of  prepara¬ 
tion.  Deeply  as  we  deplore  the  cutting  short  of  the 
full  college  course  as  a  prerequisite  to  theological  training, 
we  have  to  face  the  fact  that  so  long  as  this  is  being  done 
the  path  of  wisdom  is  to  provide  opportunities  for  such 
men  to  get  the  broadest  and  most  effective  training  pos¬ 
sible  instead  of  leaving  them  no  other  alternative  than 
to  go  to  the  “Bible  Institutes.” 

There  are  two  possible  ways  in  which  this  problem 
could  be  solved.  Some  of  our  existing  seminaries  could 
be  equipped  with  facilities  for  carrying  on  this  task  on  a 
larger  scale  and  could  concentrate  upon  it,  or  new  institu¬ 
tions  could  be  established  for  the  purpose.  The  latter 
would  be  possible  on  an  adequate  scale  only  if  a  part  of 
the  funds  now  directed  to  the  higher  education  of  the 
ministry  were  diverted  to  this  purpose  and  the  gap  filled 
by  the  consolidation  of  existing  institutions.  But  if  our 
seminaries  are  to  justify  the  large  sums  spent  upon  them, 
something  of  the  sort  must  be  done.  Such  institutions 
might  well  provide  specialized  training  for  lay  workers,  a 
field  of  which  the  Bible  Institutes  with  a  few  exceptions 
(e.g.  the  deaconesses’  schools  and  a  few  other  institutions 
of  similar  character)  now  have  a  practical  monopoly. 
Certainly  our  present  provision  for  the  training  of  lay 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  289 

workers  is  all  but  negligible  in  comparison  with  the  great¬ 
ness  of  the  opportunity. 

Special  provision  needs  to  be  made  also  by  some  of  the 
seminaries,  in  accordance  with  some  plan  agreed  upon  by 
all,  for  furnishing  opportunity  for  continued  serious  study 
and  intellectual  stimulus  for  men  already  in  the  ministry. 
After  a  few  years  in  the  active  ministry  men  come  to 
see  the  problems  on  which  they  need  further  help  and 
guidance  for  the  sake  of  their  practical  work  as  they  may 
not  have  seen  them  before.  The  summer  schools  now 
being  held  by  a  few  of  the  seminaries  are  a  valuable  step 
in  the  direction  of  meeting  this  need.  But  they  are  quite 
inadequate.  The  present  offerings  reach  only  a  compara¬ 
tively  small  number  and  often  leave  untouched  those  who 
most  need  the  stimulus  which  such  study  gives.  Such 
schools  need  to  be  distributed  in  the  different  sections  of 
the  country  according  to  a  systematic  plan.  Indeed  to 
deal  with  the  situation  on  an  adequate  scale,  it  will  prob¬ 
ably  be  necessary  for  the  educational  and  missionary 
authorities  of  the  several  denominations  to  cooperate  with 
the  seminaries  in  some  nation-wide  plan  of  extension  work 
which  will  make  available  to  all  definite  facilities  for  con¬ 
tinued  help  and  guidance.5 

Within  each  of  the  seminaries,  likewise,  as  well  as 
in  their  relations  to  one  another,  there  is  need  for  dealing 
with  ministerial  education  as  a  unified  whole.  Today, 
when  a  new  need  must  be  met,  the  natural  way  to  meet  it 
is  to  provide  a  new  course  or  courses.  This  is  good  so 
far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does  not  meet  the  real  difficulty,  and 
this  for  two  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  the  multiplication  of  courses  tends 
either  to  make  men  superficial  or  one-sided.  Either  they 

8  The  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  has  been  developing  a  plan  of  cooperation  with  some  of 
the  Methodist  seminaries  in  holding  summer  schools,  but  this  is 
only  a  small  beginning  of  what  needs  to  be  done  in  each  demoni- 
nation  or  preferably  by  the  denominations  cooperatively. 


290  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

add  the  new  to  the  old,  and  do  the  old  less  thoroughly ;  or 
they  omit  some  part  of  the  old  to  make  room  for  the 
new.  Every  teacher  who  has  followed  with  open  eyes 
the  educational  development  of  the  last  generation  realizes 
this  difficulty.  He  finds  himself  between  Scylla  and  Cha- 
rybdis  and  is  often  at  a  loss  to  decide  which  danger  is 
the  most  to  be  deprecated.  Whatever  form  of  ministry 
a  man  is  looking  forward  to,  there  are  certain  basic  sub¬ 
jects  he  needs  to  know.  Tie  must  know  his  Bible,  the 
religion  it  portrays,  the  Gospel  it  proclaims,  the  work  that 
Christ’s  Spirit  has  done  and  is  doing  in  the  world  and  the 
institution  through  which  that  Spirit  functions.  To  be 
ignorant  of  any  of  these  or  to  know  them  superficially  is 
to  invite  disaster.  But  to  gain  such  knowledge,  and  do  the 
new  things  men  are  asked  to  do,  seems  impossible.  New 
courses  will  not  help  us,  or  only  in  smallest  measure. 

What  is  needed  is  a  new  orientation  of  the  entire 
course:  the  teaching  of  the  old  subjects ,  exegesis,  history, 
theology,  and  the  like,  in  the  light  of  the  new  tasks  and 
problems  the  student  is  going  out  to  face.  Such  a  new 
orientation  cannot  be  brought  about  by  any  mere  external 
modification  of  the  curriculum.  It  requires  a  new  point 
of  view  on  the  part  of  the  faculty  as  a  whole.  Each  man 
must  conceive  his  own  work  in  the  light  of  the  present 
needs  of  his  students.  Each  must  see  the  special  thing 
he  is  doing  as  a  part  of  the  larger  whole.  Instead  of 
thinking  of  religious  education  simply  as  a  new  depart¬ 
ment  added  to  others,  each  faculty  should  constitute  itself 
a  department  of  religious  education  for  the  purpose  of 
studying  together  conditions  in  the  present  Church,  and 
ways  of  meeting  them,  and  shaping  their  instruction  of 
the  student  accordingly. 

Such  a  changed  viewpoint  would  affect  theological 
teaching  in  two  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it  would  give 
greater  reality  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  Church  his¬ 
tory  because  they  would  be  studied  in  the  light  of  present- 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  291 

day  problems  and  needs.  In  the  second  place,  it  would 
give  greater  breadth  and  balance  to  the  teaching  of  the¬ 
ology  because  it  would  require  sympathetic  treatment  of 
the  beliefs  and  practices  of  other  branches  of  the  church 
than  the  student’s  own  and  especially  of  those  cooperative 
movements  through  which  the  unity  of  Christian  faith 
and  life  is  finding  expression  in  the  world  today. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  languages  and  the  other 
traditional  subjects  of  theological  study  will  not  retain 
their  place  in  the  curriculum.  What  we  are  urging  is 
that  they  should  be  regarded  as  means  and  not  as  ends. 
We  need  to  rethink  the  whole  problem  of  education  for 
the  ministry  and  see  that  its  character  is  determined  not 
by  inherited  traditions  but  by  the  direct  inquiry  as  to 
how  we  can  best  train  men  for  the  practical  task  of  apply¬ 
ing  Christianity  to  our  complex  and  many-sided  life.  We 
are  urging  that  teachers  and  scholars  alike  should  do  their 
work  in  the  light  of  the  task  which  they  are  to  accomplish 
in  the  world,  that  they  should  come  to  understand  what 
the  Christian  life  means  in  the  actual  world  of  today,  and 
they  should  be  given  a  better  idea  of  the  use  that  is  to 
be  made  of  the  different  kinds  of  knowledge  they  are  gain¬ 
ing.  We  must,  in  a  word,  regard  the  seminary  as  first  of 
all  a  training- school.  It  is  not  primarily  a  place  for  mak¬ 
ing  technical  experts  in  Biblical  languages  and  literature, 
history,  or  philosophy,  though  the  seminary  that  is  worthy 
of  its  task  will  do  this  also,  but  for  fitting  men  to  go  out 
into  the  midst  of  modern  social  life  as  pastors,  preachers, 
teachers,  organizers,  for  the  sake  of  building  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  the  earth. 

What  if,  to  take  a  single  example,  we  should  approach 
the  question  of  education  for  the  ministry  from  the  stand¬ 
point  of  winning  the  polyglot  industrial  population  of  our 
great  cities  to  the  Christian  Church?  Do  we  seriously 
think  that  we  would  require  the  study  of  Hebrew  as  a 
necessary  qualification — to  the  exclusion  of  lines  of  study 
that  would  help  the  student  to  understand  the  daily  life  of 


292  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

these  foreign-born  people  and  to  approach  them  on  the  side 
of  their  conscious  needs  ?  Does  it  not  seem  reasonable 
that  some  of  our  prospective  ministers  should  devote  to 
the  learning  of  the  Italian  tongue  the  time  they  would 
otherwise  spend  in  learning  Hebrew? 

Or  suppose  we  should  direct  the  research,  to  which  our 
theological  institutions  are  now  rightly  giving  new  em¬ 
phasis,  not  only  to  finding  out  what  happened  two  or  three 
thousand  years  ago  in  Palestine  but  to  what  is  happening 
today  in  social  and  international  realms  on  which  we  must 
bring  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  to  bear? 

Especially  important,  in  the  light  of  the  unique  im¬ 
portance  which  we  have  attached  in  this  study  to  the 
teaching  function  of  the  Church,  is  a  more  serious  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  training  of  the  men  in  the  seminaries  for  a 
truly  educational  ministry.  To  do  this  will  mean  at  least 
two  things.  The  first  is  to  provide  for  all  students  the 
basic  courses  essential  for  an  understanding  of  what  is 
involved  in  the  task  of  educating  people  in  religion.  We 
shall  never  have  a  teaching  Church  until  we  have  a  gen¬ 
eration  of  ministers  who  are  qualified  to  give  leadership  to 
their  parishes  in  religious  education,  at  least  to  the  extent 
of  really  knowing  how  to  set  to  work  to  develop  an  educa¬ 
tional  program.  Happily,  as  we  have  seen,  the  seminaries 
are  beginning  to  increase  both  the  quantity  and  quality  of 
instruction  in  this  subject,  although  most  of  them  still 
have  a  long  way  to  go.  The  second  task  is  to  give  to 
certain  men  a  genuinely  professional  training  in  religious 
education  so  that  these  may  be  thoroughly  equipped  for 
the  more  specialized  tasks  in  the  educational  field,  as 
directors  of  religious  education  in  local  parishes,  as  of¬ 
ficials  in  the  many  agencies  of  religious  education,  denom¬ 
inational  and  interdenominational,  as  teachers  of  religious 
education  in  colleges  and  seminaries.  This  will  require  in 
some  schools,  at  least,  fully  manned  departments  of  re¬ 
ligious  education,  including  provision  for  graduate  work 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  293 

and  research,  second  to  no  other  department  in  the 
seminary. 

Such  a  readjustment  of  viewpoint  and  method  as  we 
have  been  suggesting  will  not  be  easy,  for  it  will  involve 
leaving  a  field  where  literature  is  abundant  and  precedents 
are  many  for  one  in  which  there  is  as  yet  little  consensus 
of  opinion  and  methods  need  to  be  worked  out  experi¬ 
mentally,  as  we  grow  better  acquainted  with  the  task. 
But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  shirking  the  attempt  or  turn¬ 
ing  it  over  to  others  less  equipped  with  historic  knowledge 
and  perspective,  but  for  attacking  it  with  all  possible 
courage  and  thoroughness. 

As  a  result  of  the  new  emphasis  on  scientific  and 
scholarly  study  in  the  seminary  we  now  have  a  wealth 
of  useful  monographs  in  various  fields  of  religious  knowl¬ 
edge.  But  these  volumes  have  been  written  almost  ex¬ 
clusively  on  the  familiar  subjects  of  the  older  curriculum 
— the  criticism  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  Church 
history,  theology  and  the  like.  Has  not  the  time  come 
to  give  similar  attention  to  the  practical  problems  before 
the  Church  today  as  they  meet  us  on  the  foreign  field,  in 
the  rural  community,  in  our  civic  life,  in  the  industrial 
areas  of  our  great  cities,  in  the  places  where  race  and 
race  or  nation  and  nation  meet  so  sharply  side  by  side 
as  to  challenge  the  Church  whether  it  can  make  its  Gospel 
of  brotherhood  a  present  reality.  To  whom  should  we 
look  for  help  in  our  efforts  to  solve  these  problems  if  not 
to  the  teachers  in  our  theological  seminaries  ?  Who 
should  take  the  lead  in  organizing  the  research  that  is 
necessary  for  our  guidance,  if  not  they?  What  work 
could  they  do  which  would  do  more  to  give  reality  and 
interest  to  their  own  teaching? 

But  for  this  there  must  be  cooperation  on  a  far  wider 
scale  than  we  have  had  in  the  past:  cooperation  between 
the  faculties  of  different  theological  institutions;  coopera¬ 
tion  between  teachers  of  theology  as  a  class  with  teachers 


294  THE  TEACHING  WORK  OF  THE  CHURCH 

in  other  institutions ;  cooperation,  finally,  with  the  leaders 
of  the  Churches. 

Cooperation  between  the  faculties  of  different  institu¬ 
tions  is  needed  not  only  for  the  more  intelligent  distribu¬ 
tion  of  work  between  the  different  institutions,  but  for 
the  study  of  common  needs,  the  provision  of  needed  tools, 
and  above  all  the  exchange  of  experience.  Such  coopera¬ 
tion  should  take  place  not  only  between  teachers  of  dif¬ 
ferent  denominations  but,  what  is  even  more  important, 
between  teachers  of  different  theological  convictions  and 
sympathies.  What  is  needed  is  not  the  surrender  of  con¬ 
viction  but  intelligent  understanding  of  the  convictions  of 
those  who  differ,  in  order  that  in  spite  of  differences,  a 
common  platform  may  be  found  on  which  men  may  stand 
to  proclaim  the  Christian  Gospel  and  bring  it  to  bear  on 
every  phase  of  human  life. 

Cooperation  is  needed  with  the  faculties  of  our  univer¬ 
sities  and  colleges  partly  for  the  purpose  of  securing  better 
preparation  for  theological  students  in  the  things  they 
need  to  know ;  partly  for  securing  the  interest  of  the  col¬ 
leges  in  furnishing  the  necessary  religious  teaching  for 
students  who  are  not  looking  forward  to  the  ministry, 
but  who  as  laymen  and  laywomen  should  be  active  workers 
in  the  Christian  Church;  but  above  all,  for  a  common 
approach  to  those  intellectual  problems  which  lie  on  the 
border-land  between  the  seminary  and  the  university  and 
which  neither  can  solve  successfully  without  the  help  of 
the  other.  We  have  in  mind  the  whole  realm  of  applied 
Christianity — the  field  in  which  psychology,  sociology,  and 
economics  must  supply  data,  without  which  the  Christian 
minister  cannot  intelligently  discharge  his  responsibility 
to  society.  There  are  Christian  men  in  the  faculties  of 
our  universities  who  have  much  to  teach  us  in  this  field, 
if  only  we  can  define  our  problem  in  such  a  way  as  to 
secure  their  most  effective  cooperation. 

Finally,  cooperation  is  needed  with  the  leaders  of  the 
Churches  from  which  our  students  come  and  which  they 


EDUCATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY  295 

are  designed  to  serve.  We  need  such  cooperation  to 
secure  the  most  effective  use  of  our  existing  educational 
facilities.  We  need  it  to  secure  such  new  facilities  as  our 
new  definition  of  the  task  may  require.  We  need  it  to 
increase  the  number  of  men  now  in  the  ministry  who  de¬ 
sire  to  continue  their  theological  studies  after  graduation 
and  to  secure  conditions  such  as  to  make  those  studies 
possible.  Above  all,  we  need  it  to  unify  the  thinking 
of  the  Church  in  the  central  problems  which  concern  us 
all  alike.  Only  when  those  who  are  leading  the  practical 
work  of  the  Church  see  eye  to  eye  with  those  who  are 
training  its  teachers,  can  we  hope  to  have  the  conditions 
we  desire  in  the  Church.  Only  when  our  seminaries  do 
their  work  with  a  vivid  consciousness  of  conditions  in  the 
Church  and  in  the  world  in  which  the  Church  is  set,  can 
they  turn  out  the  kind  of  ministers  we  need. 

We  end  where  we  began — on  the  unity  of  the  Church’s 
educational  task.  No  part  of  it  can  be  isolated  from  the 
others.  The  higher  we  climb  in  the  educational  scale,  the 
more  clearly  we  see  the  interdependence  of  each  part  of 
the  Church’s  teaching  work  with  all  the  others.  The  call 
of  the  hour  is  for  a  more  adequate  and  a  more  unified 
educational  program  for  the  Church  as  a  whole. 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  following  suggestions  of  literature  dealing  with  the 
field  covered  in  this  volume  make  no  pretense  of  being 
exhaustive.  They  aim  only  to  indicate  some  of  the  more 
useful  sources  for  further  study  of  the  various  subjects. 

Part  I. 

Athearn,  W.  S.,  Religious  Education  and  Ameri¬ 
can  Democracy.  Boston,  1917. 

Betts,  G.  H.,  The  New  Program  of  Religious  Edu¬ 
cation,  New  York,  1921. 

Bower,  W.  C.,  The  Educational  Task  of  the  Local 
Church,  St.  Louis,  1921. 

Brown,  A.  A.,  A  Plistory  of  Religious  Education 
in  Recent  Times,  New  York,  1923. 

Brown,  S.  W.,  The  Secularization  of  American 
Education,  Columbia  University,  New  York, 
1912. 

Burns,  J.  A.,  The  Growth  and  Development  of  the 
Catholic  School  System  in  the  United  States, 
New  York,  1912. 

Burns,  J.  A.,  Catholic  Education,  New  York,  1917. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  Christian  Nurture.  Revised  edi¬ 
tion,  New  York,  1917. 

Coe,  G.  A.,  A  Social  Theory  of  Religious  Educa¬ 
tion,  New  York,  1917. 

Cope,  H.  F.,  Religious  Education  in  the  Church, 
New  York,  1918. 

Cope,  H.  F.,  Education  for  Democracy,  New  York, 
1920. 

Cubberley,  E.  P.,  Public  Education  in  the  United 
States,  Boston,  1919. 

Dewey,  J.,  Democracy  and  Education,  New  York, 
1916. 

Dewey,  J.  and  E.,  Schools  of  Tomorrow,  New 
York,  1916. 


297 


298  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

McGiffert,  A.  C.,  A  Teaching  Church,  Religious 
Education,  Feb.  1921. 

Religion  Among  American  Men.  Committee  on 
the  War  and  the  Religious  Outlook,  Chapter 
VIII,  New  York,  1920. 

Winchester,  B.  S.,  Religious  Education  in  a 
Democracy,  New  York,  1917. 


Part  II. 

(a)  On  Principles  Underlying  the  Curriculum 

(See  also  references  under  Part  I) 

Betts,  G.  H.,  How  to  Teach  Religion,  New  York, 
1919. 

Bobbitt,  J.  F.,  The  Curriculum,  New  York,  1918. 

Bower,  W.  C.,  A  Suggestive  Approach  to  the  Re¬ 
construction  of  the  Curriculum  of  the  School  of 
Religion,  Religious  Education  XII;  231. 

Charters,  W.  W.,  Curriculum  Construction,  New 
York. 

Coe,  G.  A.,  Opposing  Theories  of  the  Curriculum, 
Religious  Education,  April,  1922. 

Meriam,  J.  L.,  Child  Life  and  the  Curriculum, 
New  York,  1921. 

Miller,  I.  E.,  Education  for  the  Needs  of  Life, 
New  York,  1919. 

Sharp,  F.  C.,  Education  for  Character,  Indianap¬ 
olis,  1917. 

(b)  On  Special  Methods  and  Problems 

(See  also  references  under  Part  III  a) 

Galloway,  T.  W.,  The  Use  of  Motives  in  Teaching 
Morals  and  Religion,  Boston,  1917. 

Hartshorne,  H.,  Worship  in  the  Sunday  School, 
New  York,  1913. 

Kilpatrick,  W.  H.,  The  Project  Method.  New 
York,  1918. 

McMurry,  C.  A.,  Teaching  by  Projects.  New 
York,  1920. 

Meredith,  W.  V.,  Pageantry  and  Dramatics  in 
Religious  Education,  New  York,  1921. 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


299 

Richardson,  N.  E.,  The  Church  at  Play,  New  York, 
1922. 

Stevenson,  J.  A.,  The  Project  Method  of  Teaching, 
New  York,  1921. 

Weigle,  L.  A.,  and  Tweedy,  H.  H.,  Training  the 
Devotional  Life,  New  York,  1917. 

(c)  On  the  Various  Age  Groups 

Betts,  Anna  F.,  The  Mother-Teacher  of  Religion, 
New  York,  1922. 

Cope,  H.  F.,  Religious  Education  in  the  Family, 
Chicago,  1915. 

Hartshorne,  H.,  Childhood  and  Character,  Boston, 
1919- 

King,  I.,  The  Psychology  of  Childhood,  Chicago, 
1920. 

Kirkpatrick,  E.  A.,  The  Individual  in  the  Making, 
Boston,  1911. 

Lynch,  Ella  F.,  Bookless  Lessons  for  the  Teacher 
Mother,  New  York,  1922. 

Mumford,  E.  E.  R.,  The  Dawn  of  Religion  in  the 
Mind  of  a  Child,  New  York,  1915. 

Norsworthy  and  Whitley,  Psychology  of  Child¬ 
hood,  New  York,  1921. 

St.  John,  E.  P.,  Child  Nature  and  Child  Nurture, 
Boston,  1911. 

Weigle,  L.  A.,  The  Training  of  Children  in  the 
Christian  Family,  Boston,  1922. 

Forbush,  W.  B.,  The  Boy  Problem,  Boston,  1907. 

Moxcey,  Mary  E.,  Girlhood  and  Character,  New 
York,  1916. 

King,  I.,  The  High  School  Age,  Indianapolis,  1914. 

Shaver,  E.  L.,  Teaching  Adolescents  in  the  Church 
School,  New  York,  1923. 

Thompson,  James  V.,  Handbooks  for  Workers 
with  Young  People,  New  York,  1922. 

(d)  On  the  Education  of  Public  Opinion 

Batten,  S.  Z.,  The  Church  as  the  Maker  of  Con¬ 
science,  Amer.  Jour,  of  Soc,,  Vol.  VII:  611. 

Brown,  W.  A.,  The  Church  in  America,  New  York, 
1922,  pp.  295-302. 


300 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ellwood,  C.  A.,  The  Reconstruction  of  Religion, 
New  York,  1922.  Especially  Chap.  XI. 

Lippman,  W.,  Public  Opinion,  New  York,  1922. 

Lowell,  A.  L.,  Public  Opinion  in  War  and  Peace, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  1923. 

McConnell,  F.  J.,  The  Preacher  and  the  People, 
New  York,  1922. 

Public  Opinion  and  the  Steel  Strike.  By  the  Com¬ 
mission  on  Inquiry  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement,  New  York,  1921. 

Rauschenbusch,  Christianizing  the  Social  Order, 
New  York,  1912. 

Ross,  E.  A.,  Social  Psychology,  New  York,  1908. 

The  Church  and  Industrial  Reconstruction,  By  the 
Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Religious  Out¬ 
look,  Chapter  VIII,  New  York,  1920. 

Part  III. 

(a)  On  Organization  and  Methods  of  Religious  Education 
(See  also  references  under  Part  II  b) 

Athearn,  W.  S.,  The  Church  School,  Boston,  1914. 

Beard,  Frederica,  Graded  Missionary  Education  in 
the  Church  School,  Philadelphia,  1917. 

Cope,  H.  F.,  Organizing  the  Church  School,  New 
York,  1923. 

The  School  in  the  Modern  Church,  New 
York,  1919. 

The  Week  Day  Church  School,  New  York, 
1921. 

Diffendorfer,  R.  E.,  Missionary  Education  in  Home 
and  School,  New  York,  1917. 

Gage,  A.  H.,  How  to  Conduct  a  Church  Vacation 
School,  Philadelphia,  1921. 

Hutchins,  W.  N.,  Graded  Social  Service  for  the 
Sunday  School,  Chicago,  1914. 

Lobingier,  J.  L.,  World  Friendship  through  the 
Church  School,  Chicago,  1923. 

Meyer,  H.  H.,  The  Graded  Sunday  School  in  Prin¬ 
ciple  and  Practice,  New  York,  1910. 

Rice,  E.  W.,  The  Sunday  School  Movement  and 
the  American  Sunday  School  Union,  Philadel¬ 
phia,  1917. 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


301 

Richardson  and  Loomis,  The  Boy  Scout  Move¬ 
ment  Applied  by  the  Church,  New  York,  1915. 
Sampey,  J.  R.,  The  International  Lesson  System, 
New  York,  1911. 

Squires,  W.  A.,  The  Week  Day  Church  School, 
Philadelphia,  1921. 

Stafford,  H.  S.,  The  Vacation  Religious  Day 
School,  New  York,  1920. 

Stout,  J.  E.,  The  Organization  and  Administration 
of  Religious  Education,  New  York,  1922. 

Stout  and  Thompson,  The  Daily  Vacation  Church 
School,  New  York,  1923. 

Week  Day  Religious  Education :  A  Survey  and 
Discussion  of  Activities  and  Problems,  Edited  by 
H.  F.  Cope,  New  York,  1922. 

See  also  the  various  series  of  Graded  Lesson 
Texts  for  the  Sunday  School,  courses  of  study  for 
week  day  and  daily  vacation  Bible  schools  and 
teacher  training  courses. 

See  also  the  manuals  for  the  Citizenship  Train¬ 
ing  Program  (Y.  M.  C.  A.)  the  Girl  Reserves 
(Y.  W.  C.  A.)  Boy  Scouts  of  America,  Girl 
Scouts,  Camp  Fire  Girls,  Woodcraft  League,  etc. 

(b)  On  the  Coordination  of  Programs. 

Athearn,  W.  S.,  Religious  Education  and  American 
Democracy,  Chapter  III,  Boston,  1917. 

Blashfield,  H.  W.,  Young  People  and  the  Church 
School,  Religious  Education,  April,  1920. 

Bower,  W.  C.,  The  Educational  Task  of  the  Local 
Church,  Chapter  III,  St.  Louis,  1921. 

Coe,  G.  A.,  A  General  View  of  the  Movement  for 
Correlating  Religious  Education  with  Public 
Instruction,  Religious  Education  XI,  109. 
Community  Programs  for  Cooperating  Churches, 
R.  B.  Guild,  Editor,  Chapter  V,  New  York,  1920. 
Cope,  H.  F.,  The  School  in  the  Modern  Church, 
Chapters  IV,  VIII,  XII,  New  York,  1919. 
Lobingier,  J.  L.,  What  Shall  We  Do  With  the 
Young  People  in  Religious  Education,  June, 
1920. 

What  Provision  Should  Be  Made  for  the  Better 
Coordination  of  Agencies.  A  series  of  articles 


302 


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by  S.  M.  Cavert,  Mabel  Head,  R.  L.  Kelly,  and 
F.  M.  Sheldon,  Religious  Education ,  June, 
1923- 

Winchester,  B.  S.,  Correlation  of  the  Week  Day 
Curriculum  and  the  Sunday  School  Curriculum, 
Religious  Education ,  Oct.,  1922. 

Wood,  C.  A.,  School  and  College  Credit  for  Out¬ 
side  Bible  Study,  Yonkers,  1917. 


Part  IV. 

(a)  On  the  College  and  University 

Athearn,  W.  S.,  Religious  Education  and  Ameri¬ 
can  Democracy,  Chapters  V  and  VI,  Boston, 
1917- 

Beam,  L.,  The  College  and  the  Theological  Sem¬ 
inary  Association  of  American  Colleges  Bulletin, 
Vol.  IX,  pp.  244-263. 

Braden,  S.  R.,  Cooperative  Biblical  Teaching  for 
Credit  at  the  University  of  Missouri,  Christian 
Education,  Vol.  VI;  481. 

Brown,  A.  A.,  A  History  of  Religious  Education 
in  Recent  Times,  Chapter  IX,  New  York,  192 

Brown,  B.  W.,  A  Statistical  Survey  of  Illinois  Col¬ 
leges,  The  American  College  Bulletin,  March, 
I9U- 

Brown,  W.  A.,  The  Responsibility  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  for  the  Teaching  of  Religion,  Yale  Divinity 
Quarterly,  June,  1920. 

The  Church  in  America,  New  York,  1922, 
pp-  308-317. 

Burton,  E.  D.,  Religious  Education  in  the  Colleges, 
Association  of  American  Colleges  Bulletin,  Vol. 
IX,  pp.  223-229. 

Chapin,  C.  B.,  Should  the  Bible  be  a  Required  or 
an  Elective  Study  in  Our  Colleges,  Christian 
Education,  VI :  93. 

Coe,  G.  A.,  Policies  for  College  Instruction  in  Re¬ 
ligious  Education,  Religious  Education,  June, 
1920. 

Foster,  O.  D.,  Schools  of  Religion  at  State  Uni¬ 
versities,  Christian  Education,  Vol.  V :  183. 


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303 


Foster,  O.  D.,  Canadian  Theological  Colleges  and 
American  Schools  of  Religion,  Christian  Edu¬ 
cation,  Vol.  V ;  281. 

Some  Glimpses  of  Trans-Mississippi  Uni¬ 
versities,  VI,  489. 

Humphreys,  W.  R.,  The  University  of  Michigan 
Courses  in  Biblical  Literature,  Christian  Educa¬ 
tion,  VI;  109. 

Kelly,  R.  L.,  The  Place  and  Function  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  College,  Christian  Education,  Vol.  V ;  177. 

The  Field  and  Future  of  the  Christian  Col¬ 
lege,  Christian  Education,  Vol.  VI ;  297. 

The  Relation  of  Biblical  Departments  to  the 
Curricula  of  Liberal  Colleges,  Christian 
Education,  Vol.  VI ;  205. 

Lampe,  M.  W.,  University  Policy  of  the  Presbyte¬ 
rian  Church,  U.  S.  A. ;  Christian  Education, 
Vol.  V ;  236. 

Micou,  P.,  The  Church’s  Inquiry  into  Student  Re¬ 
ligious  Life,  Church  Missions  House,  New  York, 

T923- 

Munro,  H.  C.,  Religious  Education  at  State  Uni¬ 
versities,  Christian  Education,  Vol.  VI;  471. 

Report  of  Commission  on  Religious  Education  in 
Colleges,  Religious  Education,  Dec.,  1921. 

Sweets,  H.  H.,  The  Religious  Culture  of  the  Stu¬ 
dents  in  Our  Colleges,  Christian  Education, 
Vol.  VI ;  288. 

Wild,  L.  H.,  The  Status  of  Religious  Education  in 
Our  Colleges,  Christian  Education,  Vol.  VI ; 

75- 

Standardization  of  Biblical  Departments  in 
Colleges,  Religious  Education,  Vol.  XII ; 
139- 

(b)  On  the  Theological  Seminary 

Brown,  W.  A.,  The  Church  in  America,  Part  V, 
New  York,  1922. 

Theological  Education,  Monroe’s  Cyclopedia  of 
Education,  Vol.  V,  New  York,  1914. 

Education  for  Christian  Service,  by  Members  of 
the  Faculty  of  the  Divinity  School  of  Yale  Uni¬ 
versity,  New  Haven,  1922. 


304 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Mathews,  S.,  Vocational  Efficiency  and  the  Theo¬ 
logical  Curriculum,  American  Journal  of  Theol- 
ogy,  April,  1912. 

McGiffert,  A.  C.,  Theological  Education,  American 
Journal  of  Theology,  Jan.,  1911. 

Mackenzie,  W.  D.,  Standardization  of  Theological 
Education,  Religious  Education,  Aug.,  1911. 

Robins,  H.  B.,  Reorganization  of  the  Theological 
Seminary  in  the  Light  of  the  Needs  of  Today, 
Religious  Education,  Feb.,  1920. 

Theological  Education  in  America,  A  Survey  of 
Protestant  Theological  Seminaries  in  the  United 
States  and  Canada  (In  Press),  George  H. 
Doran  Co.,  New  York. 

The  Seminary  and  the  Seminary  Man,  A  series  of 
papers  in  Christian  Education,  October,  1923. 

Year  books  of  the  various  denominations  and  cata¬ 
logues  of  the  different  seminaries. 


INDEX 


Activity  as  an  element  in 
teaching,  31-32,  100-101,  186 
Adolescence,  religious  educa¬ 
tion  during  early,  89-98 
Adolescence,  religious  educa¬ 
tion  during  late,  98-107 
Adult  education  in  religion,  44, 
50-53,  108-123,  164-167 
Agencies  of  religious  education, 
I4S-I7S 

American  Sunday  School 
Union,  209,  210-212 
Association  of  Biblical  in¬ 
structions,  223,  243 

Bangor  Theological  Seminary, 
280 

Baptist  work  in  universities, 
258,  262-263 

Baptist  Young  People’s  Union, 
149,  219 

Bible  in  religious  education. 
(See  also  Old  Testament, 
Jesus,  etc.)  30-31,  64 
Bible  Institutes,  279,  287-288 
Bible  study  in  colleges,  221,  268 
Biblical  Teaching  in  Colleges, 
238,  242-246,  252,  269 
Birge,  E.  A.,  quoted,  254,  265 
Blashfield,  H.  W.,  quoted,  153 
Boards,  denominational,  205- 
209,  221 

Boy  Scouts.  (See  Scout  or¬ 
ganizations) 

Brown,  E.  E.,  quoted,  233 
Brown,  S.  W.,  quoted,  12 
Brown,  W.  A.,  referred  to, 
vii,  138 

Bushnell,  Horace,  quoted,  46 

California,  Court  Decision  on 
Bible,  19 

California,  University  of,  266 
Campfire  Girls,  168,  172-173, 
202,  210,  220-221 


Canada,  Christian  Citizenship 
program  in,  171 

Catechetical  instruction,  29, 
158-159 

Cavert,  S.  M.,  vii 
Central  Committee  on  United 
Study  of  Foreign  Mis¬ 
sions,  217 

Centralization,  its  effect  on  edu¬ 
cational  programs,  12,  18-19 
Childhood,  Characteristics  of, 
.  7i,  76-78 

Children,  religious  education 
of,  44-50, _  71-88 

Christian  Citizenship  Training 
Program.  (See  Y.  M.  C. 

A.) 

Christian  Endeavor  Society,  32, 
149,  207,  219 

Christianity,  117,  119,  et  pas¬ 
sim 

Church,  the ;  its  responsibility 
for  education,  3,  25-29,  32, 
37,  49  . 

its  educational  function,  38-59 
Church  history;  teaching  of, 
105-106,  165-166 
Church  membership,  106-107, 
124,  161-162 

Citizenship,  education  for,  12, 
14-17 

Colgate  Theological  Seminary, 
280 

College  Boards  of  denomina¬ 
tions,  208,  22 1 
Colleges,  Christian,  56 

religious  education  in,  231- 

249 

Columbia  University,  10,  245, 

250 

Committee  on  Friendly  Rela¬ 
tions  with  Foreign  Stu¬ 
dents,  257 

Committee  on  Missionary 
Preparation,  223,  257 


305 


30 6  INDEX 


Committee  on  Social  and  Re¬ 
ligious  Survey,  177,  272 
Committee  on  the  War  and  the 
Religious  Outlook,  36-37, 
339 

Communicants’  class,  158-162 
Community  life,  educational 
bearing  of,  47,  167 
Community  program  of  reli¬ 
gious  education,  199-205 
Constitutions  of  States,  provi¬ 
sions  on  education,  15,  16 
Constitution  of  U.  S.,  pro¬ 
visions  on  education,  13, 
22 

Conference  of  Church  Work¬ 
ers  in  Universities,  223 
Conference  of  Theological 
Seminaries,  210,  223,  284 
Congregational  Foundation  for 
Education,  235 
Conversion,  46 

Cooperation  of  Churches 
needed,  24-25,  135-137,  200- 
201,  204,  264-266,  285,  294- 

295 

Coordination  of  programs  of 
religious  education,  32,  35, 

37,  152-155,  162,  163,  175, 
194-195,.  1967228,  294-295 
Cornell  University,  260 
Council  of  Church  Boards  of 
Education,  34,  210,  221- 
222,  246,  247,  272 
Council  of  Women  for  Home 
Missions,  158,  217 
Council  on  Correlation  of  Pro¬ 
grams,  216,  218,  219,  220, 
221,  223,  224,  227-228 
Cubberley,  E.  P.,  quoted,  4,  9, 
10,  12,  14 

Curriculum,  modern  expansion 
of,  6 

modern  theory  of,  7,  23,  31, 
190-191 

college,  242-249 
theological,  281-283 

Daily  Vacation  Bible  Schools, 
1 63,  et  passim 

Democracy,  education  in,  14-17, 

21,  113-117 

Denominational  boards  of  edu¬ 
cation,  205-209,  21 1,  213 


Denominationalism,  effect  on 
religious  education,  18,  24- 

25,  135-137 

Dewey,  John,  7-8,  16,  23 
Directors  of  religious  educa¬ 
tion,  34,  198,  204 
Disciples’  Colleges,  244-245, 
262-264 

Doctrine,  place  of,  in  educa¬ 
tion,  44,  51-53,  275-276 
Doing,  learning  by,  7-8,  77-78, 
100-101,  154,  159,  187-188, 
191-192 

Economic  conditions  as  affect¬ 
ing  religious  education, 
111-113,  119-121,  139-141 
Educational  function  of  church, 
38-59;  see  also  Church 
Ellwood,  C.  A.,  quoted,  132 
Environment ;  see  Social  en¬ 
vironment 

Epworth  League,  149,  207,  219 
Evangelism,  relation  of  educa¬ 
tion  to,  40-41 

Evanston,  Ill.,  Week-Day 
Schools,  182 

Experimentation,  need  for,  193- 
194,  202 

Family,  education  through  the, 
3,  4,  44-47,  65-68,  164-165 
worship,  66 

Federal  Council  of  the  Church¬ 
es,  137,  138,  140,  ML  224, 
225 

Fellowship  as  the  basis  of  re¬ 
ligious  education,  42-43,  47- 
48,  51,  5 2,  142 

Foreign  missions.  (See  also 
missionary  education)  122, 
257,  278 

Forest  Hills  conference,  226- 
228 

Forums,  167 

Foundations  for  religious  edu¬ 
cation  at  universities,  261- 
264,  270 

Garden  City  Conference  of 
Educational  Agencies,  225- 
226G 

Gary,  Ind.,  Week-Day  Schools, 
177,  183 


INDEX 


General  War-Time  Commission 
of  the  Churches,  137-138 
Girl  Reserves;  see  Young  Wo¬ 
men’s  Christian  Associa¬ 
tion 

Girl  Scouts;  see  Scout  organi¬ 
zations 

God,  making  Him  real  to  chil¬ 
dren,  65-75,  79-8i 
Graded  lesson  materials,  33,  49, 
147-148,  213 

Growth,  44,  50-53,  63-64 

Harvard  College,  10,  246,  250 
Higher  education,  5,  44,  56-59 
Holy  Spirit,  40,  51 
Home,  educational  function  of, 
44-47,  65-68,  164-165 

Illinois,  University  of,  258, 
262 

Immigration,  effect  on  religious 
education,  17-18 
Industrial  conditions  affecting 
religious  education,  m-113, 
114,  119-121,  128-131,  139- 
141 

Infancy,  religious  education  in, 

64-71 

Instruction,  its  place  in  educa¬ 
tion,  48-49 

Interchurch  investigation  of 
steel  strike,  141 

Interdenominational  agencies, 
209-223 

Interdenominational  Young 
People’s  Commission,  210, 
216,  218-219 

International  life,  Christianiz¬ 
ing,  1 16,  129,  131-132,  140- 
141 

International  Sunday  School 
Association,  34,  209,  211- 
212,  213,  214,  247 
International  Sunday  School 
Council  of  Religious  Edu¬ 
cation,  34,  36,  21 1,  214 
International  Sunday  School 
Lesson  Committee,  29-30, 
33,  209,  212-214,  216,  227 

James,  William,  referred  to,  50, 
no,  275 


307 

Jesus  as  teacher,  39-40,  85-86 
life  of,  as  taught  to  children 
and  youth,  69,  74-75,  96-97, 
1 04- 1 05 

Johnson,  F.  E.,  129 
Judd,  C.  H.,  quoted,  5 

Kansas  Agricultural  College, 
252 

Kansas,  University  of,  262 
Kelly,  R.  L.,  vii 
Kindergarten  period,  religious 
education  in,  68-71 
Kinley,  Pres.,  quoted,  251 

Leadership,  training  for,  44,  56- 
59,  193- 194 

Legislation,  educational  signifi¬ 
cance  of,  130-131 
Library,  public,  173 
Lobingier,  J.  L.,  quoted,  153 
Lyttleton,  Edward,  referred  to, 
46 

Malden,  Mass.,  Week-day 
School,  182 

McConnell,  Francis  J.,  quoted, 
137 

McGill,.  University,  266,  274 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
work  in  universities,  262- 
264 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
South,  247 

Michigan  Agricultural  College, 

.  259 

Michigan,  University  of,  253 
Middle  Colonies,  education  in,  4 
Ministry,  education  for  the, 
271-295 

Minnesota,  University  of,  255 
Mission  boards  of  denomina¬ 
tions,  215,  216-217 
Missionary  education,  32,  37,  71, 
155-159,  162,  166,  198-199, 
207-208,  248 

Missionary  Education  Move¬ 
ment,  156,  158,  168,  210, 
216-218 

Missions,  educational  concep¬ 
tion  of,  43 
Moral  education,  41 
Motion  pictures,  educational 
signficance  of,  134-135,  *74 


INDEX 


308 

Nationality  as  affecting  reli¬ 
gious  education,  115-116 
Negro  in  America,  116 
New  England,  education  in,  4- 
5,  9-10,  12-14,  17,  200 
Newspaper  as  former  of  public 
opinion,  55,  122,  133-136 
New  Testament,  educational 
value  of  (See  also  Bible, 
Jesus,  etc.),  104- 107 
North  Dakota,  University  of, 
262 

Ohio  University,  259,  263 
Oklahoma,  University  of,  252 
Old  Testament,  educational 
value  of,  73-74,  80-85,  93- 
96,  103-104 

Organization  of  religious  edu¬ 
cation,  145-175,  196-228 

Parents,  as  religious  teachers, 
45-48,  65-68,  164-165 
Pennsylvania  State  College,  252 
Pennsylvania,  University  of, 
260 

Playground,  173- 174 
Practical  work,  emphasis  on  in 
theological  seminaries,  290- 
293 

Preaching,  educational  func¬ 
tion  of,  42,  145-146 
Presbyterian  Board  of  Educa¬ 
tion,  209 

Press,  daily,  as  molder  of  pub- 
lic.  opinion,  55,  122,  133-136 
Prohibition,  educational  signifi¬ 
cance  of,  130 

Protestant  attitude  toward  edu¬ 
cation,  9-1 1,  26-28,  33 
Protestant  Episcopal  Board  of 
education,  209 

Public  opinion,  creation  of,  44, 
53-55,  124-142 

Public  Schools  in  America,  3- 
28,  174-175,  178-179,  188- 
189 

Race  as  affecting  religious 
education,  115 

Religion,  place  of,  in  educa¬ 
tion,  8-28 

Religious  education ;  defined, 
41-42 


Religious  education,  as  duty  of 
the  Church,  28-37 
as  distinguished  from  moral 
education,  41-42 
its  functions,  44-58 
in  college  and  university,  231- 
270 

in  theological  seminary,  281- 
292 

Religious  Education  Associa¬ 
tion,  33,  177,  210,  223-224, 
243,  247 

Religious  freedom ;  its  effect  on 
education  policy,  12-14,  22, 

27 

Research  as  a  duty  of  Church, 
44,  56,  138-142,  292 

Roman  Catholic  educational 
policy,  4,  17-18,  26-28 

Rural  Church,  problems  of, 
278 


Schools  of  Religion  at  univer¬ 
sities,  264-267,  270 
Science,  its  effect  on  religious 
teaching,  12,  19-20,  109- 

iii,  118-119,  276-277 
Scout  organizations,  32,  37,  168, 
172- 1 73,  201,  202,  210,  220- 
221 

Sectarianism,  18,  24-25 
Secularization  of  education,  3- 
28 

Sharp,  F.  C.,  quoted,  41 
Shaver,  E.  L.,  vii,  177 
Social  environment  as  a  factor 
in  education,  108-123,  124- 
131,  277-278 

Social  ideals  of  the  Churches, 

M1 

Social  relations,  the  Church’s 
teaching  about,  81-84,  101- 
102,  105-107,  166-167 
Social  service,  education  in, 
159,  166-167 

South  Carolina,  University  of, 
252 

South  Dakota,  interest  in  re¬ 
ligious  education,  16 
Southern  Colonies,  education 
in,  4 

Specialization  in  theological 
education,  277,  286-287 


INDEX 


State,  the  responsibility  of,  for 
education,  3,  14-17,  21 
separation  of  church  and,  57, 
233,  250  _ 

State  universities;  see  Univer¬ 
sity 

Story  telling  to  children,  68-71, 

73-76,  79-85 
Stout,  J.  E.,  quoted,  35 
Student  Fellowship  for  Chris¬ 
tian  Life  Service,  258 
Student  Volunteer  Movement, 
155,  210,  222,  256,  257 
Summer  institutes  of  religious 
education,  34 

Sunday-School  as  an  agency  of 
religious  education,  29-37, 
49-50,  147-150,  152-153,  157- 
158,  162,  163,  164,  167-169, 
178-179,  180,  198-199,  200- 
201 

Sunday  -  School  Associations, 
201-202,  21 1 

Sunday-School  Boards  (de¬ 
nominational),  204-209,  21 1, 

213,  215 

Sunday-School  Council  of 
Evangelical  Denominations, 
34,  209,  2 13-214,  247 

Tawney,  R.  H.,  quoted,  139-140 
Teacher  training  classes,  34, 
167-170,  204 

Teaching  methods,  187-188,  et 
passim 

Teaching  process,  191-192,  et 
passim 

Texas,  University  of,  262,  265 
Theological  seminary,  58-59, 
271-295 

Toronto  University,  266,  274 

Unified  program,  need  for;  see 
coordination 

Uniform  Sunday-School  les- 
.  sons,  29-33,  64,  147-148,  212 
Union  Theological  College  at 
Chicago,  280 


309 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 

.274 

Unity,  Christian,  24-25,  135-137 
Unity  in  educational  program ; 

see  Coordination 
University  pastor,  258-260,  270 
University,  religious  education 
in,  56,  58,  221,  233,  250,  271 

Vacation  Bible  Schools,  163 
Van  Hise,  C.  R.,  quoted,  265 
Vinson,  Pres.,  quoted,  250 
Vocation,  religious  view  of,  101 

Wayland  foundations,  263 
Week-day  religious  education, 
.34,  163,  174-175,  176-195 
Weigle,  L.  A.,  vii 
Wesley  foundations,  262-264 
Westminster  foundation,  263 
Winchester,  B.  S.,  vii 
Wisconsin,  University  of,  262 
Wood,  I.  F.,  quoted,  245 
World  Alliance  for  Interna¬ 
tional  Friendship,  140 
World’s  Sunday  School  Asso¬ 
ciation,  209,  214-215 
Worship,  educational  signifi¬ 
cance  of,  42,  145 
in  the  family,  66 

Yale  University,  10,  232,  250 
Young  Men’s  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciation,  37,  57,  170-172,  201, 
202,  216,  219-220,  222,  255- 
256,  270 

Young  Women’s  Christian  As¬ 
sociation,  37,  57,  170-172, 
201,  202,  216,  219-220,  222, 
255-256,  270 

Young  people’s  societies,  32,  37, 
149-155,  157-158,  162,  198- 
199,  201,  207,  218-219 
Youth,  characteristics  of,  89- 
90,  99-100 

religious  education  of,  44-50, 
89-107 


